Amazon sends chills through its workforce with mixed message memo about AI use

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/10/31/amazon-sends-chills-through-its-workforce-with-mixed-message-memo-about-ai-use-corey-quinn/5306804

18•Logans_Run•2h ago

Comments

Elsewhereindeed•1h ago

If you click this link expecting to read the memo you'll be disappointed as its 95% about what the author thinks about it.

alephnerd•1h ago

Welcome to the Register.

Here's the actual memo - https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-softwar...

tgv•45m ago

Welcome to corporate drivel. That memo says next to nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been written by some LLM. "Write it in a grand style, like Kennedy's moon speech, but don't scare the share holders."

altairprime•1h ago

I was very glad for that! It sounds boringly useless, and the extensive response to it is much more valuable than yet another corporate memo of spendthrift-firemore.

Edit: Yeah, it’s just stack ranking by token/use pivottable; keep your work within 1.5 stddevs of everyone else’s or get targeted. Definitely missable.

> We recommend paying special attention to the 10th percentile (finding those teams who aren’t embracing AI effectively and understanding why) and the 90th percentile (finding those teams who are heavily using AI and understanding whether they’re seeing delivery increases to match) of AI adoption.

thatonehack•52m ago

Of course Amazon is telling their teams to use AI; they are heavily invested in it not being a flop. More token usage metric for the hyper scalers means more traction and usage irrespective of revenue.

BatchJob•48m ago

Amazons tokenmaxxing problems are of their own making and its their money. I fail to see how Amazons opinion on much of anything is that relevant.

Have you seen that website? While hocking sweatshop products is highly profitable, and their shipping empire is impressive if not destructive to retail shipping in general. I dont really view them as much of a software company.

But each company will need to decide how to usa AI and if they want to publish "deep thoughts" by Amazon, Inc, its a free country.

Personally, the people token maxxing to me are violating the ethos of what it means to be a software developer, so maybe they arent really software devs.

I cant sum it up in a short write up, but one thing true software devs are NOT is - sheep.

The ones that are can go back into real estate after the bust.

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