Amazon has mostly sat out the AI talent war

Summary

As the AI talent war sweeps across Silicon Valley, Amazon has largely sat on the sidelines. A confidential internal document, and accounts from people familiar with the matter, reveal why.The company has flagged its unique pay structure, lagging AI reputation, and rigid return-to-office rules as major hurdles. Now, the tech giant is being pushed to rethink its recruiting strategy as it scrambles to compete for top talent.The document, from late last year, was written by the HR team covering Amazon's non-retail businesses, including Amazon Web Services, advertising, devices, entertainment, and the newly formed artificial general intelligence team."GenAI hiring faces challenges like location, compensation, and Amazon's perceived lag in the space," the document noted. "Competitors often provide more comprehensive and aggressive packages." Business Insider obtained a copy of the document.Amazon's absence from recent splashy AI hires underscores those concerns. Meta has pulled in high-profile talent from ScaleAI, Apple, and OpenAI. Google and OpenAI continue to be top destinations for AI experts, while Microsoft has even drafted a wish list of Meta AI employees it hopes to recruit.Amazon's spokesperson initially told BI that the company continues to "adapt our approach to remain highly competitive, maintaining flexibility in both our compensation packages and work arrangements to attract and retain the best AI talent in this dynamic market."Hours later, the spokesperson updated the statement, saying the premise of the story was "wrong," without providing any specifics."We continue to attract and retain some of the best people in the world and they're building and deploying GenAI applications at a rapid clip. Our compensation is competitive, but we also want missionaries who are passionate about inventing things that will make a meaningful difference for customers — for those kinds of people, there's no better place in the world to build."Door desks and 'egalitarian' pay ...