Amazon employees at Ring and other smart home divisions must now demonstrate artificial intelligence usage to secure promotions, according to a new mandate from Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, who returned to lead the company in April.
Siminoff announced Wednesday that all promotion applications at his RBKS organisation—which includes Ring, Blink security cameras, Key in-home delivery service, and Sidewalk wireless network—must explain how employees are using AI at work. The policy aims to reward “innovative thinking” and reinforce a culture of speed and efficiency, Business Insider reported.
“When we combine innovative technology with our missions, we create something truly special,” Siminoff wrote in an email obtained by Business Insider. A Ring spokesperson confirmed the changes only apply to Amazon’s RBKS employees, not the entire company.
Employees must prove AI impact in their work for promotions
Employees seeking promotions must describe how they’ve used generative AI or other AI technologies to improve customer experience or increase operational efficiency. They must also cite specific AI projects and measurable impact achieved.
Management positions face additional requirements, needing to show how they used AI tools to accomplish “more with less” while reducing or maintaining headcount levels. “In the spirit of Day 1 culture, we will keep learning, iterating and improving this,” Siminoff wrote.
The mandate reflects Amazon CEO Andy Jassy‘s broader emphasis on productivity and cost-efficiency across the company. Jassy warned last month that AI will reduce Amazon’s workforce due to efficiency gains.
Founder returns with “AI first” vision
Since returning after a two-year hiatus, Siminoff has implemented sweeping changes at Ring. He scrapped the company’s recent mission statement “Keep people close to what’s important” and reinstated the original “Make neighborhoods safer” focus.”We are reimagining Ring from the ground up with AI first,” Siminoff wrote in a recent staff email. “It feels like the early days again — same energy and the same potential to revolutionize how we do our neighborhood safety.
“The AI promotion requirement joins other tech companies incorporating AI use into talent evaluation. Shopify announced in April that managers must prove AI couldn’t do a job better before hiring, while Microsoft has also begun evaluating some employees based on internal AI tool usage.
Siminoff has pushed employees to use AI daily, asking in one email: “If we all lean in on AI, could we launch 10% or 10 times more shit? My guess is if we really all fully leaned in on AI and pushed ourselves hard to create constraints that only could be overcome with the use of AI, we could double our output immediately.”