Top executives at some of the largest American companies have a warning for their workers: Artificial intelligence is a threat to your job. CEOs from Amazon to IBM, Salesforce and JPMorgan Chase are telling their employees to prepare for disruption as AI either transforms or eliminates their jobs in the future.
AI will “improve inventory placement, demand forecasting and the efficiency of our robots,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a Tuesday public memo that predicted his company’s corporate workforce will shrink “in the next few years.” He joins a string of other top executives that have recently sounded the alarm about AI’s impact in the workplace. Economists say there aren’t yet strong signs that AI is driving widespread layoffs across industries. But there is evidence that workers across the United States are increasingly using AI in their jobs and the technology is starting to transform some roles such as computer programming, marketing and customer service. At the same time, CEOs are under pressure to show they are embracing new technology and getting results — incentivizing attention-grabbing predictions that can create additional uncertainty for workers. “It’s a message to shareholders and board members as much as it is to employees,” Molly Kinder, a Brookings Institution fellow who studies the impact of AI, said of the CEO announcements, noting that when one company makes a bold AI statement, others typically follow.

Full report : Top CEOs say AI will shrink their workforces — is it posturing or prescience?