For months, alarmists have been warning of the “end times” of AI and how it could eventually leave large portions of the workforce unemployed, while the rest would be left to manage virtual employees. But for Jeff Bezos, these fears are overblown and instead AI will bring even more jobs than there are people available to fill them.
Speaking during VivaTech, an annual technology conference held in Paris, the founder of Amazon and fourth richest person in the world presented an optimistic view on the impact of artificial intelligence on the job market — a thesis he has been defending for weeks.
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“I know there is a lot of concern from a lot of people, including very smart people, that AI will make humans unnecessary,” Bezos said in conversation with David Limp, CEO of Blue Origin. “I completely disagree with that point of view. And I think, in fact, AI will create a labor shortage.”
It was not the first time he had made this argument. In an interview with CNBC in May, Bezos used the “bulldozer versus shovel” metaphor to argue that AI will increase workers’ productivity rather than replace them; predicted deflation driven by productivity gains; and specifically dismissed fears of replacing skilled professionals such as radiologists and software engineers. At the time, he called the phenomenon a “labour shortage”.
Humans have an “infinite” amount of things they want to do, Bezos said during the conference, and are currently limited only by barriers that AI will help reduce. By removing these restrictions, he argued, the demand for human effort will only increase.
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The statements put him at odds with a significant portion of Americans, including some of the most influential voices in the technology sector itself. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published this month found that half of respondents in the United States fear that the advancement of AI could leave them or someone in their family out of work.
In February, a Federal Reserve director warned that an “unemployment boom,” which would leave workers “virtually unable to get jobs,” was “entirely possible.”
Even leaders of large AI companies, such as Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, have predicted that AI could cause “extraordinarily painful” disruption to office occupations.
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However, both he and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have since tempered those predictions on the eve of their companies’ mega IPOs.
Bezos’ comments also come at a particularly difficult time for the industry. Layoffs in technology until May 2026 have already exceeded 115 thousand vacancies, approaching the total recorded for the entire year 2025.
Meta, Amazon and Snap are among the companies that have pointed to AI as one of the factors behind the cuts.
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Goldman Sachs has estimated that AI is eliminating about 16,000 jobs per month in the United States, with entry-level and Gen Z workers taking the biggest hit.
A survey of chief financial officers indicated that AI-related layoffs could be nine times higher in 2026 than last year.
Bezos, for his part, focuses on the argument that past industrial revolutions have always created more jobs than they destroyed, although he has not directly addressed the data on how layoffs are affecting the sector.
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Prometheus
Bezos’ appearance on the VivaTech stage also gave him the opportunity to talk about Prometheus, the AI startup he co-founded in November 2025 alongside Vik Bajaj, a former Google X scientist.
The company, which raised US$12 billion with a market valuation of approximately US$41 billion — making it one of the largest fundraisings in history for an early-stage AI startup — operates at the intersection between artificial intelligence and what it calls the “physical economy”.
Its focus is on engineering and manufacturing, in the aerospace, automotive and drug development sectors.
In another interview with CNBC, Bezos described the company as creating something close to an “artificial general engineer” — a next-generation design tool capable of modeling, predicting and optimizing the creation of physical objects, from jet engines to pharmaceuticals. He defined it as “a very, very modern version of CAD”.
Bezos also made a point of correcting misconceptions about what Prometheus actually does. In the same CNBC interview, he interrupted a question that described the startup as an “AI robotics” initiative.
“We have nothing to do with robotics,” he said.
Space exploration, Bezos said, is about saving Earth. If launch costs fall enough, raw materials could be obtained from asteroids, the Moon and near-Earth objects — an issue particularly relevant at a time when the rush for rare earth minerals is at record levels, accompanied by geopolitical tensions and real shortages.
Recently, McKinsey predicted a 30% deficit in magnetic rare earth minerals by 2035. Going to space, according to Bezos, would also help humanity by moving the most polluting industries off the planet.
“If space travel becomes sufficiently reliable and cheap, and we can get materials from asteroids, near-Earth objects and the Moon, then this garden planet could return to the state it was in before the Industrial Revolution,” Bezos said.
Limp, from Blue Origin, who participated in the event alongside Bezos at VivaTech, presented the first public update on the company’s recovery after the explosion that occurred in May on the New Glenn rocket launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Rebuilding the platform has already begun, Limp confirmed, although no timeline for new launches has been released.
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