Amazon on Friday (Nov 17) made an announcement regarding a massive lay off in its Alexa voice assistant unit. The reason for the sudden cut in jobs was said to be the “shift” in business priorities and increasing focus on generative artificial intelligence.
The job cuts will affect “several hundred” employees who have been working on Amazon‘s Alexa, as per the email. No clarity was given on exactly how many will be affected by the sudden layoff.
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“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,” stated Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, in the email. “These shifts are leading us to discontinue some initiatives,” he added.
From the last week, Amazon has been pulling back in different divisions, which included its music and gaming divisions as well as some human resources roles.
Although most of the jobs affected were in the devices division, a few of them were working on products related to Alexa in a different unit, stated a spokeswoman.
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Shift of resources to generative AI a threat to jobs?
A lot of companies have been moving resources to generative AI which has the potential of creating software code as well as lengthy text responses if given short prompts.
In September, news agency Reuters reported that morale in the devices division had suffered because of concerns regarding what some saw as a weak product pipeline.
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The people, who were familiar with the issue, in particular, pointed to the Alexa voice assistant which is now almost a decade old and appears to have failed in keeping pace with the progression of generative artificial intelligence.
Amazon stated at the time that “to suggest that a few anecdotes paint a picture of reality for an organisation as large and diverse as Devices and Services is inaccurate,” and that it supports its products.
Amazon has stated that its services business and devices are not profitable, without giving any specific figures. Alexa is a voice assistant created by Amazon which can be used for playing music, searching queries, setting timers, or as a home automation hub.
(With inputs from agencies)
