Andy Jash, CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, said he expects the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the company's workforce in the next few years.

In an email to employees on the 17th (local time), CEO Joshi said that Generative AI and AI-based software agents will change the way they do business. Amazon is investing heavily in AI, such as Alexa+, which is equipped with Generative AI in its voice assistant Alexa. In-house, AI tools are also used for inventory placement, customer service, and product list.

"It is difficult to know exactly what AI will lead to," he said, "but the total number of white-collar workers will decrease as we gain efficiency from widespread AI use across the company in the next few years."

"Learn AI tools and experiment with them yourself," he said. "We need to find a way to do more with fewer people."

CEO Josh's comments are the latest to reflect concerns that AI will replace human jobs.

Rio Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a rival of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, recently warned that "AI could eliminate half of all new office jobs over the next five years and send unemployment soaring by up to 20%.

Duolingo, a foreign language learning service provider, said it would gradually stop hiring contract employees to perform tasks that AI could handle.

E-commerce company Shopify asked its employees to explain why AI cannot do the job when it requests new staffing.

Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the U.S., after Walmart, with 1.56 million employees as of the end of March. Most of them are in charge of packaging and shipping goods in warehouses, but about 350,000 of them are in management positions.