JAKARTA — Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said AI and office jobs will not end in a wave of mass layoffs, even as many Silicon Valley forecasts say artificial intelligence could cut millions of entry-level roles. He made the remarks on the Platformer podcast released Tuesday, while stressing that Amazon is still hiring thousands of young talents this year.
Garman said predictions that half of office jobs will disappear sound dramatic, but do not make economic sense. He compared today’s AI frenzy with the rise of Microsoft Excel years ago. Work changes. It does not vanish.
AI and office jobs: change, not disappearance
“If you believe that half of jobs are going away, the entire economy would just collapse on itself,” Garman said. “Everything would go away. You wouldn’t have AI, and then at some point you’d have to go back to that other work. The math doesn’t work.”
His comments came as debate over the future of work grows louder. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei previously warned that AI could wipe out up to half of entry-level office jobs. Garman disagreed. In his view, a modern economy still needs people with income to spend money. If that flow breaks, the business chain shakes too.
Short. Firm.
Garman did not deny that some roles will disappear. But he stressed that “disappear” is different from “change.” In his view, AI will push companies to reshape workflows, not wipe out white-collar workers. Jobs that were once done manually, then automated, usually shift toward higher-value tasks.
The Excel lesson and changing work
To explain his logic, Garman pointed to a familiar workplace tool: Excel. When spreadsheet software spread, many manual calculation jobs shrank. Yet companies still needed people. Workers learned a new tool, then moved into more complex tasks.
He sees a similar pattern in the AI era. Technical skills still matter, but adaptability matters more too. People who learn fast, he said, will be better prepared for changing workflows. Those who refuse to learn are the ones most likely to fall behind.
That message also matters for readers in Indonesia. Many companies here are chasing efficiency, from customer-service chatbots to internal report automation. If the same pattern holds, office workers will not automatically disappear. What changes is the kind of work they do each day.
Amazon still hires interns and new graduates
Even though Amazon is among the leaders in AI adoption, the company is not stopping its hunt for young talent. Garman said Amazon plans to hire 11,000 interns and new graduates this year. He also said the number of software developers at Amazon is now higher than two years ago, even though AI-powered coding tools are far more advanced.
In a statement to Fortune, Amazon said it remains committed to internships as an important pipeline for finding the next generation of leaders and builders. For Garman, the business case is simple: early-career workers are usually cheaper, easier to train, and less likely to carry habits that are hard to change.
“They haven’t learned bad habits yet, you can teach them the company culture, they are willing to learn new tools, and they’re among the best employees you can get,” he said.
There is another, quieter reason. Young workers bring a fresh perspective. In large companies, that outlook often gets lost when teams stay too long with the same people. Garman pointed to energy, curiosity and a willingness to learn as important assets that are often overlooked.
Why entry-level hiring still matters
Garman also has a personal reason to believe in young talent. He joined Amazon in 2005 as an MBA intern while still studying at Northwestern University, then rose over nearly two decades in the cloud business before becoming AWS CEO in 2024. That path, he said, taught him that many careers at a big company start at the bottom.
His view echoes several other tech leaders who are growing cautious about the narrative that “AI will eliminate all entry-level jobs.” Ravi Kumar S of Cognizant said his company is hiring 20,000 new graduates in 2025 and expects that number to rise in 2026. IBM has also said it will double entry-level hiring after concluding that overreliance on AI-driven efficiency is not a healthy long-term strategy.
Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM’s chief human resources officer, also warned about a widening hole in the talent pipeline if companies stop hiring early-career workers. “If we don’t keep investing in entry-level employees, what happens in three to five years?” she said. “There’s no pipeline; the well runs dry.”
The big picture is getting clearer. Large companies will keep using AI to cut costs and speed up work. But they also know that without a new generation, organizations lose long-term momentum. What is at stake is not just the number of jobs today, but who will lead businesses five years from now. That question still has no final answer.
Quick summary
1. Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says AI and office jobs will change, not disappear.
2. Amazon is still hiring 11,000 interns and new graduates this year, while emphasizing learning and adaptability.
3. Other executives, including leaders at Cognizant and IBM, are also pushing back on bleak forecasts about the disappearance of entry-level jobs.
FAQ: Will AI wipe out office jobs? According to Garman, not on a mass scale. What do companies want most? Fast learning, curiosity and flexibility. What does this mean for young workers? Opportunities are still there, but they need to be ready to use new tools.
Going forward, the debate over AI and jobs is likely to shift from whether jobs will disappear to which jobs will change fastest — and companies that prepare young talent now will probably be better positioned to win.
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