Deepti Varma, Vice President, People eXperience and Technology (PXT), Amazon Stores India, Japan, and Emerging Markets
If you can convey an opinion in a tweet, why not keep the performance feedback for your employees crisp and quick?
This was Amazon’s rationale to come up with a 60-word employee feedback system a few years back, which is now a valuable performance management tool. Now, with a layer of AI, it is also making the process more efficient and saving time, said Deepti Varma, Vice President of People eXperience and Technology (PXT) at Amazon Stores India, Japan, and Emerging Markets. PXT is the term Amazon uses for its HR function.
“People can give feedback to one another in less than 60 words. We call it ‘Superpowers and Growth Areas.’ And it’s not just the manager who gives feedback but anyone you work with can send a feedback request,” Varma told businessline in a recent interaction. The AI layer then analyses the responses and offers the employees a summarised view of their strengths and areas to work on. “I used to get 80-90 feedback requests and responding to all that used to take me 10-12 days, but now it takes 2-3 days,” she added.
One for A(I)ll
This is in addition to Amazon’s popular Connections tool, which poses a set of questions to employees daily as they log in to their systems. Rolled out many years ago, the questions relate to different themes around workplace satisfaction and Varma said the data helps Amazon shape and improve the employee experience.
Besides, there are various AI-powered tools that help the company build better experience for their employees. The Big tech major does not allow external tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or any others to be used by employees.
One is Cedric, which allows individuals to analyse, draft and summarise documents. The company’s AI tool PartyRock, powered by Amazon Bedrock, is a hands-on, generative-AI app-building playground for employees. There is also ‘Amazon A to Z,’ which helps employees manage their profile information, submit time-off requests, check schedule, see the latest news, and more.
Problem solving
Speaking about the impact of such tools, the executive, who has been with Amazon for over 15 years, and is based in Hyderabad, said it’s to increase the ability of employees to solve big problems. “Right now, we’re still at a stage where we’re getting people comfortable with the tools. Success is when you’ve used that tool to solve a real problem,” she adds.
Despite all the automation taking over tech companies, Varma noted that pace of hiring remains mostly same.
“Last year, we [Amazon India] hired around a thousand employees from campuses. This year, it’s around 900, so pretty much the same,” she added.
However, AI is changing what Amazon looks for in its employees. Besides hiring people who display the Amazon ‘Day 1 spirit,’ the company also looks for those who can align themselves to today’s rapidly-changing world of technology, she said. “It’s a great time for people who can connect the dots…that person will be more valuable than someone who’s just technically sound,” she added.
Published on July 14, 2025
