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Amazon
Amazon goes by means of yet one more spherical of layoffs, stories Computerworld, and as soon as once more the corporate’s devices-and-services division seems to be bearing the brunt of it. The layoffs will primarily have an effect on the group engaged on Alexa, the Amazon voice assistant that drives the corporate’s Echo sensible audio system and different merchandise.
“Several hundred roles are impacted,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement, “a comparatively small proportion of the full variety of folks within the Devices enterprise who’re constructing nice experiences for our prospects.”
Amazon says these layoffs outcome from “discontinue[d] initiatives” which were discarded as the corporate invests extra sources in generative AI merchandise; the corporate did not specify precisely which initiatives have been being discontinued. Amazon hasn’t launched an AI-powered model of Alexa but, however it confirmed “an early preview” of its efforts in September, “primarily based on a brand new massive language mannequin that is been custom-built and particularly optimized for voice interactions.”
So far, Amazon has promised quicker response occasions, the flexibility to speak to Alexa with out saying “Alexa” first, and a extra conversational chat mode.
Amazon has all the time had bother being profitable from Alexa, which was mentioned to lose as a lot as $10 billion in 2022. Amazon’s Echo gadgets have been profitable—analysts at Statista say that Amazon controls round two-thirds of the sensible speaker market within the US as of January 2023, and the assistant is claimed to get “a billion interactions per week.” But the {hardware} is offered at price, and folks work together with Alexa primarily to play music or examine the climate, to not spend cash on Amazon or anyplace else.
It has been a tricky 12 months for Amazon’s gadgets division, which has already borne a big share of the 27,000 layoffs that the corporate has introduced within the final 12 months. Longtime chief David Limp left the group, although he was changed by former Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay. And Amazon has reined in its {hardware} ambitions, pushing for cheaper gadgets and delaying or canceling different tasks.
On prime of that, the corporate was ordered to pay $46.7 million by a Delaware courtroom that dominated that Alexa had violated one other firm’s patents.
Whether a generative AI model of Alexa can deal with all or any of those issues is an open query, however Amazon is not the one firm betting on generative AI’s moneymaking potential. Microsoft has gone all in on generative AI this 12 months—however this week’s drama at OpenAI, the corporate behind many of the expertise Microsoft makes use of—and Google is making an attempt very arduous. Apple has been quiet on this entrance in public, mentioning “AI” in passing or by no means on this 12 months’s product bulletins, however early stories point out that Apple is working to construct generative AI options into iOS 18, the following main model of the software program.