AWS CEO: White Collar Jobs ‘May Change’ With AI

Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman says negative predictions about AI and its impact on work are heavily exaggerated.

On an episode of the Platformer podcast this week, Matt challenged the idea that AI could lead to the dissolution of large parts of the modern workforce.

In response to the concern, he said he believes half of white-collar jobs “may change” because of the technology, however, it doesn’t mean they will cease to exist.

Matt said “wipe out and change are different”, using Microsoft Excel as an example of a technology that worked in harmony with workers rather than replacing them.

"The key thing is not to look at a still picture of the world and say that job's not going to exist,” he adds.

”New jobs will be created.”

The value of entry-level employees

Matt went on to say that AI is already helping create new jobs across numerous industries.

He says: “What I tell people at Amazon is – there are going to be lots of jobs.”

He emphasises the value of entry-level employees, despite wider concerns that AI could effectively replace that kind of work.

Matt told the podcast that entry-level employees are the cheapest kind to hire and are eager to hear about a company’s culture and the tools it uses.

“They're some of the very best employees you can possibly have,” Matt adds. 

“They come in with an energy and excitement, a new view on things. If you just have the exact same people you've had for the last 15 years, you don't get that energy and excitement and new ideas.”

Reflecting Matt’s enthusiasm, Amazon plans to hire more than 11,000 software development engineering interns and early-career software development engineers globally this year.

He adds that workers like these who are willing to learn new skills will establish careers for themselves in the AI era, even if said roles look very different to ones today.

Matt says: “If you look at what your job was two years ago, and you look at what your job is going to be in two years, it's going to be vastly different. You're going to have a job – you're going to have probably a more exciting and interesting job.” 

He adds that even with the promise of a more engaging job, “you're going to have to be willing to learn”.

Amazon’s US$130bn investment into AWS

Matt went on to highlight that worker adaptability may eventually become more important than any one particular skill.

“I actually think one of the things we start to look for in employees is not what skill set you have,” he says. “Whether you have the ability to learn.”

Amid industry talks of obsoletion in the tech industry, Amazon is continuing its AI investment into AWS, which currently generates around US$130bn in annual revenue and is integral to the company’s global cloud and AI infrastructure.

Additionally, the company investing in AI tools, such as coding assistant, security systems, productivity software and recruitment technologies capable of automating the hiring process.

Matt says these technologies are already reshaping work patterns, both in software development and across the entire company.