Amazon (AMZN.O) employees flagged AI projects that produced what they called
“catastrophic” cost overruns totaling several million dollars, citing deployment
errors and weak spending controls, according to people familiar with the matter.
Senior engineers told colleagues on Tuesday that efforts to move tasks from
traditional code to AI models generated unplanned expenses. Engineers are
implementing automated safeguards and other measures to rein in future project
costs. The $2.5 trillion company is conducting large-scale layoffs to cut costs
and support its AI investments; it expects capital expenditure of about $200
billion this year, with the majority allocated to AI and data-center
infrastructure.