Amazon is slicing a whole bunch of jobs within the unit that handles its widespread voice assistant Alexa because it plows extra assets into artificial intelligence.
In a word to workers on Friday, Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s vice chairman of Alexa and Hearth TV, wrote that the corporate is eliminating sure roles as a result of it’s ditching some initiatives.
“As we continue to invent, we’re shifting some of our efforts to better align with our business priorities, and what we know matters most to customers — which includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI,” Rausch wrote.
He stated “several hundred” positions can be reduce however didn’t give a extra exact determine.
Seattle-based Amazon is in fierce competition with different tech firms dashing to capitalize on the generative AI craze. The corporate has been implementing a number of AI initiatives prior to now few months, from infusing the know-how into buyer evaluations to offering companies that enable builders to construct their very own AI instruments on its AWS cloud infrastructure.
In September, Amazon unveiled an update to Alexa that infuses it with extra generative AI options.
The job cuts introduced on Friday will affect workers within the U.S., Canada and India.
It follows newer layoffs in Amazon’s gaming and music groups, and likewise provides to the 27,000 workers the company laid off through the later components of final yr and earlier this yr. Amazon’s Alexa unit was additionally impacted by these cuts.
