Timestamped at 2025-10-28T21:50:41Z, this report sheds light on a significant development within Amazon’s sprawling entertainment operations. The announcement, accessible exclusively to Business Insider subscribers, reveals that Amazon MGM Studios—the division responsible for the company’s television and film projects—has been notably affected by the corporation’s sweeping layoffs involving approximately 14,000 employees worldwide. Shared across multiple platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, X, and WhatsApp, the story has sparked widespread discourse about Amazon’s evolving strategy and the broader implications for its creative workforce.
The layoffs, disclosed on a Tuesday of strategic restructuring, form part of Amazon’s broader initiative to streamline its business operations while simultaneously prioritizing advances in artificial intelligence. This large-scale workforce reduction is intended to create a leaner, more agile organization capable of adapting quickly as AI becomes more deeply integrated across the company’s divisions. Amazon’s executives have repeatedly emphasized that this transformation is not merely a cost-cutting exercise but rather a deliberate shift toward an AI-augmented future in which technology enhances productivity, efficiency, and content innovation.
Within Amazon MGM Studios, several high-profile industry figures were among those whose positions were eliminated. Notably, Donna Rosenstein, who served as head of series casting, lost her role, marking the end of her tenure guiding creative talent acquisition. The layoffs also impacted Meggie Choi, an executive responsible for drama programming, and Nathan Kitada, a creative executive recognized for his contributions to Amazon’s original content slate. Each of these departures underscores the magnitude of the internal reorganization and its immediate effects on the studio’s creative leadership.
Amazon MGM Studios, renowned for producing acclaimed original series such as *The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power* and *Reacher*, functions as the entertainment engine driving Prime Video. Prime Video remains an essential component of Amazon’s broader Prime membership ecosystem, offering subscribers an array of exclusive film and television productions alongside traditional shopping benefits. Over the past year, the studio has undergone substantial leadership transitions. Following the exit of senior executives Vernon Sanders and Jen Salke, Netflix veteran Peter Friedlander assumed leadership of Amazon’s TV division, symbolizing the company’s ongoing recalibration in the competitive streaming landscape.
Parallel to these personnel and organizational shifts, Amazon has been actively experimenting with artificial intelligence to transform its entertainment sector. Under the leadership of Mike Hopkins, who oversees Amazon’s broader entertainment operations, the company has outlined plans to integrate AI-driven solutions that promise to enrich viewer experiences and empower creative teams. Executives have spoken publicly about AI’s potential to optimize content discovery, personalize recommendations, and even augment the creative process behind new visual productions.
A pivotal moment in this evolution came earlier in the year when Albert Cheng, previously head of Prime Video, transitioned into a newly defined AI-focused leadership role. Amazon explained that Cheng’s mandate would include developing cutting-edge AI tools designed specifically for filmmakers, producers, and showrunners—resources that could support creative decision-making and streamline various stages of production, from script development to post-production editing.
Further illustrating Amazon’s commitment to AI innovation, the company made a strategic investment in June in Fable Studio, an emerging startup developing *Showrunner*, an AI-powered streaming platform that enables users to experiment with generating their own series and narratives based on preexisting intellectual property. This forward-looking investment was facilitated through the Alexa Fund—Amazon’s venture capital arm dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence, voice technology, and related digital innovations. Through endeavors like this, Amazon signals its intent to position itself not just as a content distributor but as a technologically pioneering entity shaping the very infrastructure of future entertainment creation.
Taken together, these developments depict an organization at an inflection point—one simultaneously grappling with complex internal restructuring and pioneering the integration of AI to redefine how entertainment content is conceived, produced, and experienced. The layoffs at Amazon MGM Studios thus serve as both a symptom of shifting corporate strategy and a harbinger of a future in which human creativity increasingly coexists with advanced machine intelligence.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs-hit-mgm-studios-jobs-cut-gen-ai-2025-10
