Amazon cutting 49K desks, office space as company funnels billions into AI
This story was first published on: MyNorthwest.com.
Amazon’s real estate team plans to cut 49,000 desks across the company this year in an effort to reduce office space globally.
Amazon’s Global Real Estate and Facilities (GREF) team detailed the company’s plan to reduce average office vacancy from roughly 31% to 22.9% in 2026, according to minutes of the full team meeting obtained by Amazon. Puget Sound Business Journal.
The plan could eliminate millions of square feet of office space at Amazon’s offices across the company as it aims to downsize to a level equivalent to its current workforce.
As Amazon considers investing billions of dollars in artificial intelligence, the company is looking for ways to reduce costs to finance it.
Senior Real Estate Manager Martha Schwarzkopf Doyle told the meeting that Amazon could achieve its goal by allowing leases to expire, “hibernating” offices and subletting or terminating leases when the majority of an office is vacant.
“If you imagine a sold-out Taylor Swift concert and give everyone their own table, we’d have to get rid of that many tables,” Schwarzkopf Doyle said.
Cutting 49,000 desks would free up more than 10 million square feet of office space, according to the report. Puget Sound Business Journal.
In Seattle alone, Amazon, the region’s largest office occupier, employs nearly 65,000 company workers occupying approximately 17.92 million square feet of space. Nationwide, Amazon had 40.2 million square feet of office space in 2025, and an additional 28.3 million square feet of office space internationally.
Amazon did not disclose and declined to specify where the office space cuts would be made.
“We regularly evaluate our office footprint based on the needs of our business and employees,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. Puget Sound Business Journal. “Since 2023, when employees begin returning to the office, we have prioritized areas that foster the innovation and collaboration that drive our work and enable us to serve our customers.”
Last week, Amazon confirmed that its lease on its 251,000-square-foot building in Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighborhood would be expiring. There is room for approximately 1,500 employees in this office.
Although Amazon aims to reach a global vacancy rate of 22.9% this year, Schwarzkopf Doyle said the company’s ideal vacancy rate is 11%, which provides space for employees without overcrowding.
Amazon also announced plans to add 1.8 million square feet of new office space this year, but it’s unclear where the space will be.
