Jeff Bezos has set out to be everywhere both physically and metaphorically. Apart from being behind Amazon (leaving it aside to focus on other projects) or Blue Origin, he has a “new” company called Prometheus. Its goal is to develop AI systems capable of creating artificial engineers, and his latest statements have heated up the conversation about AI and the future of work. The reason? Anyone who boos AI because they think it will take away their jobs is “very far from the truth,” but then claims that AI will lead to a reduction in jobs.
Regarding physical presence, Bezos is in Europe these days. Specifically, in Paris, where the Vivatech fair is held, which we were able to attend, and where he gave a talk about the obsession of large companies with exploring space, reaching the Moon, exploring it, and creating “clouds” of satellites that orbit the Earth. The talk was about that, but we had to ask about the controversy, about Prometheus and about that future of work. And he wondered.
If you thought he was going to cast himself on the argument that AI will create jobs… you thought well and, in fact, he has gone further: he has compared it to the Industrial Revolution.
Prometheus and the AI that Will Be Good at Doing Things, Not Just Knowing Things
Prometheus is not a model or a technology: it is a company. Bezos founded it in 2024 and already has 150 employees spread across three countries. It has a valuation of $41 billion and is currently in deals to raise a $100 billion fund. It seems outrageous because it is, but on repeated occasions, these businessmen have declared that we are in a new golden age, and at Vivatech 2026, Bezos has said precisely that.
“We live in the most incredible time in history. There has not been a better time to found a company,” and Prometheus is an example. Its product will be an AI that does things, not just knows things. This is where the ‘gravy’ is, since what they are doing is developing AI systems capable of assisting in the entire engineering process, from start to finish.
It will cover everything from initial design, simulation, prototypes, manufacturing, to launch. An example that Bezos has put on the table repeatedly is the engine for a new generation airplane. Because the idea of this new AI is that it is capable of assisting an engineer, “empowering” him, according to Bezos, so they can create tools much easier and much faster.
If developing a jet engine takes a decade of work, the idea is that these artificial engineers will be able to create it in five years first, then in three, then in two. “If we can accelerate that process, everything will change,” comments Bezos in his talk.
AI, the Future of Work, and the New Industrial Revolution
“If you take a step back, 6,000 years ago someone invented the plow and everything changed. Then someone invented the steam engine and everything changed again. We want to be in that cycle to make a leap in productivity and prosperity,” Bezos declared at the Paris fair.
This argument of comparing artificial intelligence with the Industrial Revolution is not new. In recent months, the tone of university graduations in the US has been the presence of AI gurus telling how this technology is the future. The response has been young people concerned about their current employment, booing the statements.
Because there is a fear that AI will end up replacing them, and Bezos is not hiding too much. For instance, he commented that now it takes 100 people to make a next-generation jet engine, but with Prometheus AI, it will take only 10. He also stated that “despite the fact that the number of people needed is being reduced by 10, technology will create opportunities to multiply those jobs by 10.”
The problem lies in the kind of jobs that will be created, as software engineers will be needed (for the moment, at least), but other jobs can be completely replaced. “I understand that there is a lot of concern about how AI will make humans redundant, but, AI will actually create jobs because people will focus on creating and finding other problems to solve,” he points out.
“Solving problems will not be limited by our ability to execute something, but by our imagination,” he emphasizes. And, one can speculate, the imagination is infinite…