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In an effort to reduce office space around the world, Amazon’s real estate team plans to cut 49,000 desks companywide this year.
Amazon’s Global Real Estate and Facilities (GREF) team detailed plans to cut the company’s average office vacancy rate from about 31% to 22.9% by 2026, according to transcripts of a team-wide meeting obtained by Amazon. Puget Sound Business Journal.
The plan could eliminate millions of square feet of office space from Amazon’s corporate-wide offices as the company aims to downsize to a level equivalent to its current workforce.
As Amazon looks to invest billions in artificial intelligence, the company is looking for ways to cut costs.
Senior real estate manager Martha Schwarzkopf Doyle said at the conference that Amazon can achieve its goals by allowing leases to expire, “hibernating” offices and subletting or terminating leases when most of the offices are vacant.
“If you could imagine a sold-out Taylor Swift concert and having a table for everyone, that’s how many tables we would need to throw away,” Schwarzkopf-Doyle said.
According to the company, cutting 49,000 desks will free up more than 10 million square feet of office space. Puget Sound Business Journal.
In Seattle alone, Amazon, the region’s largest office occupier, employs approximately 65,000 corporate employees and occupies approximately 17.92 million square feet. By 2025, Amazon will have 40.2 million square feet of office space nationwide and an additional 28.3 million square feet internationally.
Amazon did not say where it would cut office space and declined to provide specifics.
“We regularly evaluate our office footprint based on the needs of our business and employees,” an Amazon spokesperson wrote in a statement. Puget Sound Business Journal. “As employees begin returning to the office in 2023, we have prioritized spaces that promote innovation and collaboration to advance our work and ensure we serve our customers.”
Last week, Amazon confirmed it would terminate its lease on a 251,000-square-foot building in Seattle’s Denny Triangle. The office can accommodate approximately 1,500 employees.
Although Amazon is targeting a global vacancy rate of 22.9% this year, Schwarzkopf Doyle said the company’s ideal vacancy rate is 11% to give employees space without overcrowding.
Amazon also outlined plans to add 1.8 million square feet of new office space this year, but it’s unclear where that space will be located.
Just before CEO Andy Jassy announced to investors that Amazon would spend $200 billion this year on artificial intelligence (AI) capital expenditures, GREF staff heard about the plan. A few weeks later, the company announced it would invest $50 billion in OpenAI.
Despite reinstating its five-day stay policy last year, some of Amazon’s real estate remains vacant. Between January 4 and February 28, Amazon’s average occupancy rate in the United States was 29%. According to statistics, overseas, the average occupancy rate of buildings in Asia and Europe is 35% and 39% this Puget Sound Business Journal.
Schwarzkopf-Doyle noted that the glut of office space was the result of a “change in employee strategy.” Two rounds of layoffs in October 2025 and January 2026 resulted in the layoffs of approximately 30,000 employees, including approximately 4,500 in Washington state.
Likewise, other leading tech companies have prioritized cost cutting to fund their AI investments, such as Microsoft, which recently confirmed it has no plans to proceed with construction of five buildings on its $5 billion Redmond campus expansion.
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