Amazon has said that its devices and services business is not profitable (symbolic photo).
Contents
Special items
- Jobs are being cut in the Alexa voice assistant unit
- The company wants to focus on generic AI
- Amazon has not disclosed the number of affected employees.
Amazon (Amazon.com) announced Friday that it is cutting jobs at its Alexa voice assistant unit, citing a “shift” in business priorities and a greater focus on generative artificial intelligence. news agency Reuters This has been said in a report.
Also read
According to Amazon’s email about it, the cuts will affect “hundreds” of employees working for Alexa. The spokesman declined to say how many people were actually affected.
“We’re shifting some of our efforts to better align our business choices with the people we know matter most to consumers,” said Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV. This includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on general AI. “These changes are leading us to discontinue some of our initiatives,” the email said.
Amazon has been shedding jobs over the past week across all its divisions, including its music and gaming divisions and some HR-related roles.
A company spokesperson said most of the roles affected are in the device division. Some people were working on Alexa-related products in separate units. Many companies are shifting resources to generative AI. With this, software code and long text responses can be generated from short signals.
Reuters reported in September that morale in the appliance division had fallen due to concerns that the products were seen by some as weak. People familiar with the matter pointed in particular to the Alexa voice assistant, which is now nearly a decade old. It has failed to keep pace in the age of generative artificial intelligence.
Alexa is a voice assistant that can be used to set timers, perform search queries, play music or act as a home automation hub.