Seattle is trying to have fun and speed up its management in synthetic intelligence on the very second the primary wave of the AI financial system is crashing down on the area’s tech workforce.
That distinction was exhausting to overlook Monday night on the opening reception for Seattle AI Week 2025 at Pier 70. On stage, panels supplied a wholesome dose of optimism about constructing the AI future. Within the crowd, buzz about Amazon’s impending layoffs introduced the truth of the second again to earth.
A area that rose with Microsoft after which Amazon is now coping with the implications of Massive Tech’s AI-era restructuring. Firms that employed by the hundreds at the moment are thinning their ranks within the title of effectivity and focus — a dose of company realism for the native tech financial system.
The double-edged nature of this shift is just not misplaced on Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson.
“AI, and the way forward for AI, and what meaning for our state and the world — every day I do that job, the extra that strikes up in my thoughts when it comes to the challenges and the alternatives we’ve got,” Ferguson advised the AI Week crowd. He touted Washington’s focus of AI jobs, saying his objective is to maximise the advantages of AI whereas minimizing its downsides.
Seattle AI Week, led by the Washington Technology Industry Association, was began final yr after a Forbes record of the nation’s prime 50 AI startups included none from Seattle, mentioned the WTIA’s Nick Ellingson, opening this yr’s occasion. That didn’t appear proper. Was it a messaging drawback?
“A bunch of us received collectively and mentioned, let’s speak about all of the cool issues occurring round AI in Seattle, and let’s increase the tent past simply tech issues which are occurring,” Ellingson defined.
So possibly that’s one of the best measuring stick: what number of startups will this newest shakeout spark, and the way can the Seattle area’s startup and tech leaders make it occur? Can the area grow to be much less depending on the whims of the Microsoft and Amazon C-suites within the course of?
“Washington has a lot alternative. It’s one of many few capitals of AI on this planet,” mentioned WTIA’s Arry Yu in her opening remarks. “Folks speak about China, folks speak about Silicon Valley — there are just a few contenders, however actually, it’s right here in Seattle. … The long run is constructed on information, on highly effective expertise, but additionally on group. That’s what makes this place completely different.”
And but, “AI is a sleepy scene in Seattle, the place folks work at their firms, however there’s little or no exercise and cross-pollinating outdoors of this,” mentioned Nathan Lambert, senior analysis scientist with the Allen Institute for AI, through the opening panel dialogue.
No, we don’t need to grow to be San Francisco or Silicon Valley, Lambert added. However that doesn’t imply the area can’t cherry-pick a number of the components that put Bay Space tech on prime.
Whether or not laid-off tech staff will begin their very own firms is a standard query after layoffs like this. Within the Seattle area a minimum of, that final result has been extra fantasy than actuality.
That is the place AI may change issues, if not with the fabled one-person unicorn then with a much bigger wave of latest firms born of this employment downturn. Who is aware of, possibly one will even land on that elusive Forbes AI 50 list. (Hey, a area can dream!)
However as the brand new AI actuality unfolds within the regional workforce, possibly one of the best query to ask is whether or not Seattle’s subsequent large factor can come from its personal yard once more.
