For years, Amazon seemed invincible, an e-commerce giant that made other companies shiver when it muscled into their markets. It helped Amazon stock soar into four-digit territory, and the company’s earnings reports often delighted investors.
X
Now, after a year of troubling earnings reports, Amazon has launched a major restructuring, including plans to cut 27,000 employees from its workforce. Is Amazon stock a buy?
In late March, Amazon announced plans to slash 9,000 jobs. That’s on top of the 18,000 job cuts it announced in January.
“Given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and head count,” Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a written notice to employees when the layoffs were announced. He also suggested more layoffs are possible. The cuts mainly focus on Amazon Web Services, advertising, Twitch, human resources and its stores divisions.
Amazon Jumps Into Artificial Intelligence
On April 13, Amazon jumped into the booming field of generative artificial intelligence, the technology behind ChatGPT. Amazon stock climbed on the news, as did other AI companies.
Alphabet and Microsoft (MSFT) previously announced plans to bring ChatGPT to the public. Meanwhile, Amazon’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, plans to target corporate customers.
AWS will also expand access to custom-made chips. They say the chips can run AI software more efficiently and cheaper than competitors can.
“Machine learning has been a technology with high promise for several decades. But it’s only been the last five to 10 years that it’s started to be used more pervasively by companies,” Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in his letter to shareholders.
Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence.
Jassy went on to say: “We will continue to