'Warp-Speed AI Is Harming Us': Over 1,000 Amazon Workers Write Open Letter To CEO Andy Jassy

More than 1,000 Amazon employees signed an open letter raising “serious concerns” about the company’s rapid push into artificial intelligence (AI), warning that its “all-costs justified, warp-speed” approach to deploying the technology could cause harm to “democracy, to our jobs and to the earth.”

The letter comes just a month after Amazon announced significant layoffs while expanding its use of AI in internal workflows and across its operations. The signatories include engineers, product managers and warehouse associates. In a sign of broader unrest in Big Tech, the letter is also backed by over 2,400 employees from Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Workers Say AI Is Fueling Layoffs, Overwork And Pressure

The letter details growing unrest inside

Amazon over how AI is being integrated into daily work. Workers claim they are being pushed to use AI tools to boost productivity, often without adequate oversight or support.

One senior software engineer, who has worked at Amazon for more than a decade, said leadership now uses “arbitrary productivity metrics and quotas” justified through AI. Another employee said managers recently told teams they were “expected to do twice as much work because of AI tools,” even though the tools “are just not making up that gap.”

Employees also cited examples of AI-generated code causing major errors that engineers were then forced to fix manually. Workers say they fear retaliation for raising concerns and that layoffs have intensified anxiety around refusing to use AI tools.

Despite repeated questions, Amazon did not address the workers’ critiques about internal AI pressures.

Staffers Warn Amazon Is Undermining Its Climate Goals For AI

The letter accuses Amazon of “casting aside its climate goals to build AI,” pointing to soaring energy demands from new data centers required to run large AI models. Amazon plans to spend $150 billion on data centers over the next 15 years, including $15 billion in Indiana and at least $3 billion in Mississippi, investments employees say could force utilities to rely on coal and new gas plants. Workers cite Amazon’s own climate disclosures, noting the company’s annual emissions have risen about 35% since 2019, despite its public pledge to reach net-zero by 2040.

One employee described AI as being used as a “magic word” to justify “less worker power, hoarding more resources and making an uninformed gamble on high-energy-demand chips magically saving us from climate change.”

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser rejected the accusations, saying the company remains the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy and has invested significantly in nuclear energy, including SMR projects.

Workers Demand Oversight Of AI Deployment

The letter calls for Amazon to create a non-managerial working group with authority over how and where AI should be used, how AI-related layoffs or hiring freezes should be implemented, and how the company can limit environmental impacts.

“We’re not anti-AI. We want AI that is safe, sustainable, and built with worker input- not a tool to justify surveillance, work speedups and a race for more energy-draining data centers,” one of the employees said.