Amazon’s Layoff Leak and the AI Trust Gap

Amazon’s layoff leak was a brutal reminder: trust is fragile, and AI hype does not run the business. This edition looks at the AI reality gap, why job anxiety is rising, and what “proof” looks like in rollouts, skills and comms.

By EBN 9 min read
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When the message leaks before the plan, trust is the first thing to ship.

Amazon did not just announce another wave of cuts. It tripped over its own comms, sending a draft message and calendar invite that revealed “Project Dawn” before many employees had any clear, human explanation of what was happening.

That is why it matters beyond Amazon. In a month where “AI efficiency” is doing a lot of rhetorical heavy lifting, the credibility of leadership is increasingly built on basics: how change is communicated, how work is redesigned, and whether the promises of AI show up as something employees can actually feel in their week.

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This Paper Cut follows the gap between what organisations say AI is doing, what employees think it is doing, and what happens when the story is told badly.

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