Employees must provide specific examples of what they delivered to the company, along with actions they plan to take in order to continue growing at the company.

“Accomplishments are specific projects, goals, initiatives, or process improvements that show the impact of your work,” the internal guideline specified. “Consider situations where you took risks or innovated, even if it didn’t lead to the results you hoped for.”

Evolving cultural standards in the tech world

The performance review process, known internally as Forte, helps the company determine future pay. The new performance standards mark a break from previous reviews, according to people familiar with the matter, placing greater emphasis on individual accomplishments than in recent years. 

Amazon has about 350,000 corporate employees and a total workforce of approximately 1.56 million globally, with most of its corporate employees subject to the performance review process. Past Amazon reviews have placed less emphasis on productivity, instead asking employees about their areas of interest and strengths, posing questions like “When you’re at your best, how do you contribute?”

To be sure, productivity is a common metric measured in corporate performance reviews. Productivity, along with goal progress, strengths and attendance are common talking points of corporate performance reviews. And an updated performance review does not indicate that Amazon plans to conduct layoffs.

Yet Amazon’s performance review models standards around employee discipline that have become commonplace throughout the tech industry in recent years. After taking over X (formerly Twitter) in 2022, Elon Musk demanded Twitter employees explain what they accomplished each week, a tactic he brought to the federal government as head of the Department of Government Efficiency last year. CBS News chief Bari Weiss asked her staff to describe their jobs to her when she took over in October 2025, according to a memo viewed by Business Insider.

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by Fortune.

Changes at Amazon under CEO Andy Jassy

The review shift matches similar changes made at Amazon since Jassy took over from founder Jeff Bezos as CEO. In September 2024, the company initiated a return-to-office requirement for corporate employees and, in May 2025, altered compensation to better reward the highest performers.

Documents leaked in 2022 revealed a peek into the company’s review process. In the documents, Amazon bosses were instructed to gauge an employee’s “overall value” by evaluating two metrics: their performance score and the potential they had exhibited.

The tech giant has also reshaped its workforce through layoffs. In October, the company laid off 14,000 corporate employees amid broader AI investments. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is bullish on emerging AI technologies and has sought aggressive cost-cutting measures for the company since starting in the role. 

Last June, Jassy wrote in a letter to employees that “AI agents will change how we all work and live,” defining agents as “teammates” that will help employees “focus less on rote work.” And in July, Jassy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that AI would fundamentally reshape Amazon’s workforce, automating menial work while creating new opportunities in advanced technology. 

However, Jassy says that the corporate layoffs had nothing to do with AI development or cutting costs, pointing instead to a mismatched cultural fit. “The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,” he said. “It’s culture.”

Amazon is placing its bets on AI, announcing in July an additional $100 million investment in AWS generative AI, as well as $50 billion in investments to expand AI and supercomputing infrastructure for government agencies.