Amazon Cuts 16,000 Roles as Leaked Email Signals AI Shift

The strangest part of this layoff story isn’t the headline. It is how it began: with an internal email sent before the official announcement, carrying the code name “Project Dawn” and a tone that made people pause, check their inboxes, and look around to see who was being impacted.

Within hours, that email felt real in the way that matters most inside a company. Calendars shifted, conversations tightened, and the question wasn’t what was happening, but who had already been told.

Amazon confirms 16,000 cuts and the larger total

Later that same day, Amazon put the official numbers in writing. In a public note, HR chief Beth Galetti confirmed that Amazon is making further organizational changes that will impact approximately 16,000 roles across the company.

That figure matters on its own, but it lands harder given recent history. Combined with the 14,000 corporate roles eliminated in October, the total has reached nearly 30,000 in just three months.

Galetti framed this as a structural reset. The goal is to reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy across teams.

The 90-day clock

While the cuts are company-wide, Amazon detailed specific terms for its U.S. workforce. For most U.S.-based employees whose roles are eliminated, the company says they will have 90 days to find a new job internally. If they don’t land a new role—or choose not to pursue one—the company says transition support can include severance, outplacement services, and continued health benefits.

The AI signal in the first message

Amazon didn’t label this an "AI layoff" in its official memo. But the signal embedded in the early email was hard to ignore. That first message was signed by Colleen Aubrey, the senior vice president of applied AI solutions at AWS.

That signature changes how the moment reads. When the executive responsible for scaling applied AI is the one signing the first layoff notice, the rationale of “fewer layers, more speed” feels inseparable from automation, even if the memo never uses the word.

This tension has been building inside Amazon. Late last year, more than 1,000 employees signed an open letter warning that a warp-speed AI rollout could put jobs at risk and urging leadership to adopt clearer guardrails around how AI is deployed and how workforce impacts are handled.

Amazon’s leadership frames these cuts as an effort to move faster by flattening the organization. The early “Project Dawn” email made that message land differently, not as a future plan, but as a decision already in motion.

And now, with 16,000 roles impacted, the scale is no longer abstract. It is a number with names attached.