Amazon cuts hundreds of Alexa employees to invest in AI

Amazon is shedding hundreds of Alexa workers as it invests more in AI.

Amazon's vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, Daniel Rausch, emailed to staff on Friday saying the business is cutting roles due to canceled programs.

“As we continue to invent, 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,” Rausch wrote.

He stated “several hundred” jobs would be terminated but did not specify.

Amazon, situated in Seattle, faces stiff competition from other tech businesses capitalizing on generative AI. In recent months, the company has added AI to customer reviews and offered developers a platform to build their own AI products on its AWS cloud infrastructure.

Amazon added generative AI to Alexa in September.