AWS CEO says AI will change jobs but not eliminate them, despite hiring 11,000 interns and junior staff

AWS CEO Matt Garman argues that AI will transform jobs rather than eliminate them, despite Amazon's plans to automate half a million roles with robots. In an interview with Platformer, Garman said technology historically destroys individual jobs but creates new ones, pointing to the shift from manual Excel calculations to computerized spreadsheets as an example. He emphasized that the labor force has repeatedly adapted to technological change.

Amazon is simultaneously expanding entry-level hiring, planning to bring in 11,000 interns and junior employees this year. This hiring push contrasts with AWS's growing portfolio of AI tools that automate white-collar tasks, including a developer agent, a security agent, an "agentic teammate" suite called Quick, and an AI recruiter, Amazon Connect Talent, which conducts voice interviews without human oversight.

Garman dismissed concerns that AI will wipe out large numbers of jobs, including a prediction by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. "Wipe out" and "change" are different things, Garman said, arguing that jobs evolve alongside technology. He called replacing junior employees with AI "one of the dumbest things I've ever heard" and described never hiring junior staff as a "non-starter for anyone trying to build a long-term company."

The interview underscores a tension between AWS's AI-driven automation and its commitment to entry-level hiring. Amazon has cut roughly 30,000 corporate jobs since October 2025, and its CEO, Andy Jassy, has written that AI will "reduce our total corporate workforce" in the years ahead. Despite these cuts, Garman framed AI as a tool that will create new roles even as it displaces others, arguing that the most durable skill is a willingness to learn.

Garman also reflected on the speed of AI adoption, comparing it to the cloud computing revolution. He noted that AI's impact is happening faster than previous technological shifts due to the cloud's role in accelerating model deployment and scalability. "Without the cloud, AI doesn't take off in the same way," he said, highlighting how cloud infrastructure has compounded AI's rapid adoption across industries.