Amazon has confirmed the reduction of numerous jobs (“several hundreds”) within the department dedicated to Alexa, its voice assistant. As reported by Reuters, which cites an internal email, this decision is attributable to a reallocation of company priorities, with a greater emphasis on generative artificial intelligence.
During an internal communication, later confirmed by an Amazon spokesperson – who preferred not to quantify the number of employees affected – the company announced a repositioning of resources. “We are refocusing some of our efforts to better align with our business priorities and what we know is most important to our customers,” wrote Daniel Rausch, Vice President of Alexa & Fire TV at Amazon.
Rausch continued: “This includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI.” The change in strategy led to the conclusion of some initiatives, as the manager himself admitted.