Amazon announced Friday that it is cutting jobs in its Alexa unit.
The company said in an email that it will cut hundreds of jobs related to the virtual assistant, according to Reuters. A report last year said that Alexa was expected to lose $10 billion, according to Business Standard.
“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,” said Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, according to Reuters. “These shifts are leading us to discontinue some initiatives.”
The exact number of those affected by the layoffs was not included in the announcement.
Despite the job cuts, Rausch remained upbeat about AI’s impact on Alexa and the virtual assistant’s future.
“Our investments in generative AI are also bringing our vision for an even more intuitive, intelligent, and useful Alexa closer than ever before,” said Rausch, per TheStreet. “While this was a hard decision to make, we remain very optimistic about the future of Alexa.”
Amazon’s Alexa recently came under fire due to privacy concerns, as reported by The Dallas Express. The Department of Justice sanctioned the company earlier this year following an FTC complaint that the company undermined data deletion requests from parents and continued to use data against parental will, a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule.
Despite the layoffs, the internet behemoth has had a rather profitable year, with net sales increasing 13%, and operating cash flow up 81% according to its third-quarter earnings, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The company also announced earlier this year that it would be hiring hundreds of thousands of workers this holiday season, with 30,000 in Texas alone. Positions include picking, packing, stowing, sorting, and shipping, among others.
