Tech
Amazon links planned mass layoff to AI | Computer Weekly
Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 employees amid an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled cost-cutting drive.
On 28 October 2025, Amazon’s senior vice-president of people, experience and technology Beth Galetti confirmed to employees that the e-commerce behemoth plans to axe 14,000 roles from its corporate workforce, something she specified has been prompted and enabled by the firm’s AI investments.
“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs,” she said in a message sent to employees.
While Galetti signalled further cuts down the line as the company searches for further ways to “realise efficiency gains”, she also said that Amazon expects “to continue hiring in key strategic areas” through 2026.
Although she did not give any indication of what roles are being cut, from which business units or where they will be located globally, she said most employees being let go will be offered a 90-day window to look for new roles internally.
Galetti explicitly cited AI as a key factor contributing to the layoffs. “Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well … What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly,” she said.
“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convicted that we need to be organised more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”
Galetti also referenced and linked to two previous employee messages from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. In the first, from September 2024, Jassy outlined the company’s ambitions “to operate like the world’s largest startup”, while in the second, from June 2025, he evangelised the “once-in-a-lifetime” potential of generative AI (GenAI) technologies to achieve this.
Highlighting how “AI will be a substantial catalyst” reshaping Amazon’s future workforce composition, Jassy said in June 2025 that over the next few years, “we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company”.
He concluded by encouraging employees to “be curious” and “educate yourself” about the technology’s potential: “Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company.”
Amazon’s last major round of job cuts came in early 2023. While the company sought to initially cut 18,000 jobs from its workforce in January that year, citing over-hiring during the Covid-19 pandemic, a further 9,000 cuts were announced that March, bringing the total to 27,000. A further round of job losses, which affected several hundred tech and sales staff at Amazon Web Services (AWS) specifically, came in April 2024.
From January to August 2024 thousands of tech sector jobs were axed, with many tech firms explicitly linking the layoffs taking place to the proliferation of AI and machine learning throughout their businesses.
This included Cisco, which cut 7% of its workforce while investing $1bn in AI-related startups; Dell, which cut sales roles to reallocate resources to its AI teams; Meta, which, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, laid employees off “so we can invest in these long-term, ambitious visions around AI”; and Intuit, which cut 1,800 staff to free up more resources for integrating AI into its software offerings.
In November 2023, the Autonomy Institute think tank argued that although automating jobs with large language models (LLMs) could lead to significant reductions in working time without a loss of pay or productivity, realising the benefits of AI-driven productivity gains in this way will require concerted political action.
In a paper published 20 November 2023, Autonomy forecast that AI-led productivity gains could enable 8.8 million UK workers to have a four-day work week by 2033, while just under 28 million could have their working hours reduced by 10% in the same time, if LLMs are deployed in the right way.
“Our research offers a fresh perspective in debates around how AI can be utilised for good,” said Autonomy’s director of research, Will Stronge, at the time. “A shorter working week is the most tangible way of ensuring that AI delivers benefits to workers as well as companies. If AI is to be implemented fairly across the economy, it should usher in a new era of four-day working weeks for all.”
Autonomy noted that although people have long been predicting and expecting far shorter working weeks due to technological advances, historical increases in productivity over recent decades have not translated into increased wealth or leisure time for most people, largely as a result of economic inequality.
It said there is often a sense of pessimism around AI-driven productivity gains, with most conversations emphasising the potential for job losses and degraded working conditions, but that such gains could also be used to deliver shorter working weeks for many while also maintaining their pay and performance.
However, Autonomy was clear that productivity gains are not always shared evenly between employers and employees, and depend on “geographic, demographics, economic cycle and other intrinsic job market factors” such as workers’ access to collective bargaining.
“This is a paper that identifies an opportunity and not a destiny. The actual diffusion and adoption of technology is always uneven, driven by a variety of factors: wage levels, government policy, levels of sector monopolisation, trade union density and so on,” it said.
The story of the park begins in 2014, when Enrique Peña Nieto, the president of Mexico at the time, announced plans for a new transport hub for Mexico City. It would be built on the largely dry bed of Lake Texcoco, the body of water that had once surrounded Mexico City’s ancient ancestor, Tenochtitlán, the center of the Aztec empire. The marketing promise was that NAICM would be one of the greenest airports in the world. The terminal, designed by Norman Foster—winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1999 and the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 2009—was going to be the first to obtain LEED platinum certification, the highest international recognition for energy efficiency and sustainable design.
Its site, Lake Texcoco, had already lost more than 95 percent of its original surface area, and in 2015 plans were made to drain it completely to build the airport. However, when Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office as Mexico’s president in 2018, he canceled the plan. It would end up costing more than $13 billion and would leave behind serious environmental damage: The incomplete project destroyed a key refuge for migratory birds; carved up mountains in the State of Mexico (the federal region that surrounds Mexico City); razed agricultural land; and altered the landscape of the cultural capital of the Nahua, an indigenous people that includes the Mexica (or Aztecs).
Echeverría, who says he has been obsessed with the area for nearly three decades, was appointed by the new government to restore the local ecosystem. “It felt like I was stepping onto Mars,” says the architect, reflecting on being placed at the helm of the project. The park covers an area equivalent to 21 times the area of Mexico City’s enormous Bosque de Chapultepec park. Echeverría offers his own comparisons: “This place is three times the size of the city of Oaxaca and, as a reference for those outside Mexico, it’s roughly three times the size of Manhattan.”
The restoration project wasn’t a mere whim of Mexico’s new president, but the culmination of a century of visions and plans. “We’ve been skating around this for 75 years,” Echeverría says, citing restoration projects that were proposed as early as 1913, including ones by Miguel Ángel de Quevedo (a celebrated early environmentalist) in the 1930s and agronomist Gonzalo Blanco Macías in the 1950s. What was missing, Echeverría says, “wasn’t a lack of ideas, but of political will.”
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Continuing a decades-long partnership, Ask Ralph was developed with Microsoft on its Azure OpenAI platform and uses advanced conversational AI technology and natural language processing to understand open-ended prompts, interpret context and provide tailored recommendations to closely mimic the experience of speaking with an in-store stylist.
Ralph Lauren has launched Ask Ralph, an AI-powered conversational shopping tool built with Microsoft on Azure OpenAI.
The feature offers personalised, shoppable Polo Ralph Lauren outfits in response to user prompts, simulating an in-store stylist experience.
Available first to US app users, it provides styling inspiration and tailored recommendations to enhance discovery and brand engagement.
“Twenty-five years ago, we partnered with Microsoft to launch one of the fashion industry’s first e-commerce platforms, and today, we are once again redefining the shopping experience for the next generation,” said David Lauren, Chief Branding and Innovation Officer, Ralph Lauren Corporation. “Whether getting ready for a first day of a new job, or creating the perfect look for a night out, Ask Ralph is about more than just discovery – it is about engaging consumers with what they love most about Ralph Lauren: our iconic, unique take on style, providing timeless head-to-toe looks that inspire them to step into our world.”
Shoppers can interact with Ask Ralph just as they would with a stylist in a Ralph Lauren store, through simple, conversational prompts. From “What should I wear to a concert?” to “Show me some women’s Polo Bear sweaters,” or styling queries like, “How can I style my navy-blue men’s blazer?” Ask Ralph responds, surfacing visually laid out, complete Polo Ralph Lauren looks with styling tips, integrating content from across Ralph Lauren’s digital channels. Users can ask clarifying questions and refine the recommendations to align with their own sense of style. Ask Ralph makes it easy to add individual elements of a look to shopping carts or purchase the head-to-toe recommendation.
“AI is transforming the way consumers get inspired, educated and purchase from fashion brands around the world,” said Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President of Global Industry Solutions, Microsoft. “We’re proud to bring the combination of our trusted generative AI capabilities through Azure OpenAI together with Ralph Lauren’s iconic brand to pave the way for an entirely new conversational commerce experience.”
Informed by how users initially use and engage with Ask Ralph, the tool will continue to develop, including releasing new features and increased personalized experiences, expanding to additional Ralph Lauren brands and launching across more platforms in markets around the world.
Ask Ralph is the latest milestone in Ralph Lauren’s rich history of innovation and in leading the industry in creating immersive and cinematic retail experiences that transport consumers into the World of Ralph Lauren. Twenty-five years ago, the Company was one of the first luxury brands to pioneer e-commerce, setting a new industry standard. Always pushing boundaries to surprise, delight and inspire consumers, the Company has long experimented with cutting-edge ideas that were years ahead of their time – from interactive and virtual shopping technology to holograms, 4D projections and CGI animations.
The Company also continues to invest in AI and other technologies to enhance the consumer experience, like more personalized marketing and engaging digital experiences, as well as to optimize its operations, including predictive inventory management and product demand forecasting.
Note: The headline, insights, and image of this press release may have been refined by the Fibre2Fashion staff; the rest of the content remains unchanged.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RM)
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