CDU EXPERT: Is Amazon's trade of AI for humans the beginning of a corporate trend?

21 NOVEMBER, 2025  

Who: Charles Darwin University adjunct Associate Professor Niusha Shafiabady and Associate Professor Mamoun Alazab 

Topics: 

• AI-related corporate layoffs 

• Social impact of replacing humans with AI in the workforce 

• Vulnerabilities linked to overreliance on AI in workplaces 

Contact details: Call +61 8 8946 6721 or email [email protected] to arrange an interview. 

Quotes attributable to Associate Professor Niusha Shafiabady: 

“The recent cuts to Amazon’s workforce in favour of increased reliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) raises questions about corporate responsibility when balancing efficicency with social impact. The technology is often cited as the justification for layoffs, framing AI as a corporate alibi when the decision to terminate employment ultimately lies with leadership teams. 

“Striking the balance between a ‘leaner and less bureaucratic’ workforce cannot be achieved without acknowledging how AI-driven job replacements are felt unevenly across the global workforce. It may disproportionately affect certain regions or job categories such as administration, customer service, and programming. When replacing human workers with AI, organisations must consider whether adopting the technology accelerates inequality between high-tech economies and labour-dependent ones. 

“In some cases, AI is not replacing roles but reshaping them. Research shows AI could displace between six and seven per cent of the US workforce is widely implemented, but many workers are being reskilled and redefined in their roles rather than being removed.” 

Quotes attributable to Associate Professor Mamoun Alazab: 

“It’s clearer than ever that cutting human oversight while doubling down on AI makes companies less resilient. The modern overreliance on AI systems hosted on vulnerable cloud infrastructure exposes corporations to systemic risk, and we’ve seen this happening already through Amazon’s AWS outages in October.  

"It does not matter how automated a system is, humans remain critical for ensuring work is done smoothly and efficiently. It raises the question of whether removing humans from the equation in favour of AI increases vulnerability to single points of failure. Now more than ever, we need to ensure corporations aren’t jeopardising their clients’ work in favour of cost-cuts and restructure strategies.”