Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman has reaffirmed the company’s stance on the future of work – prioritising in-person collaboration even as AI becomes increasingly integrated into everyday tasks.
In a detailed interview with CNBC, Garman explained why Amazon views physical presence at the office as essential for innovation, training, and maintaining company culture, while also acknowledging the transformative potential of AI-driven workflows.
"We felt it was super important to get people back together, and you can feel that vibrancy – it really does drive that innovation," said Garman.
"I was just spending time with a development group late last night who were building something cool, and they were eating pizza together, debugging together and working on some things.
"That just isn't the same if you're doing it over video, you don't get that energy and that drive and creativity."
Last September, the company mandated that employees must work in the office five days a week, beginning in January 2025.
"If there are people who just don't work well in that environment and don't want to, that's okay, there are other companies around," Garman said in October.
The comments drew a sharp response from hundreds of employees who, in an open letter, criticized the five days a week policy, arguing that it was not supported by data and lacked the backing the company claimed it had.
A recent survey from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) found that over 40 percent of businesses said they had tightened office attendance policies in the past year, and nearly half expect their workforce to be working onsite full-time within the next 12 months.
This marks a significant increase from last year’s BCC survey, where only 27 percent of businesses anticipated a full return to office work within five years.
AI as a Partner, Not a Replacement
While championing the importance of in-person collaboration, Garman also challenged the widespread fear that AI will replace IT workers.
Instead, he emphasised that AI will transform roles, shifting the focus from hands-on coding to managing AI tools that generate code and automate workflows.
Using AWS’s own coding assistant, Kiro, as an example, he illustrated how developers can direct AI to build software based on detailed specifications and iterate collaboratively, rather than writing every line themselves.
