According to media reports on Friday, Amazon is laying off “several hundred employees” from its Alexa division, including those in India, as artificial intelligence (AI) gains more attention.
Daniel Rausch, vice president of the Alexa and Fire TV team, stated that the company is cutting “several hundred roles” in a memo to staff members that was obtained by GeekWire.
“In order to better align with our business priorities and what we know matters most to customers, we’re shifting some of our efforts as we continue to invent. This includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI,” the memo he sent to staff members stated this.
Rausch continued, “These changes are forcing us to halt some initiatives, which is eliminating several hundred jobs.”
“We are following local procedures in other regions, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies, and possibly resulting in longer timelines to communicate,” he stated, adding that the company “will communicate with impacted colleagues in India next week.”
The report pointed out that Amazon did not offer any additional information about the projects that were ending.
The e-commerce giant had conducted layoffs in its Devices & Services division last year as part of company-wide cuts.
Rausch said that the investments in generative AI are bringing “our vision for an even more intuitive, intelligent, and useful Alexa closer than ever before”.
“We will reach out to colleagues in the US and Canada who are impacted by these role reductions. Notification emails will be sent out shortly, and we expect all notifications in the U.S. and Canada to be completed this morning (Pacific time),” the memo further read.
“To those of you impacted by these reductions, please know we did not make this decision lightly,” it added.
Packages comprising a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, outside job placement assistance, and paid time off for job searching are being offered to affected employees by the company.
Head of Amazon’s Devices & Services division Dave Limp made his departure from the company known in August. He was succeeded by Panos Panay, a former Microsoft executive.
