Amazon has cut jobs in its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team. This is the latest round of smaller job cuts at the company after its much bigger layoffs earlier this year. The company did not say exactly how many employees lost their jobs.
The full size of the layoffs is still not known. Amazon confirmed the job cuts after Reuters asked the company about them. A company spokesperson said Amazon is making changes to focus on its most important AI projects.
The spokesperson said Amazon has been building large AI models for several years. The company said AI remains one of its biggest priorities. Amazon said it wants to move faster on projects that matter most to customers. Because of this new focus, it decided to remove some roles in parts of its AGI division, according to an Amazon spokesperson to Reuters.
What is Amazon AGI?
AGI stands for Artificial General Intelligence. It is a future type of AI that is expected to become smarter than humans and work, learn, and improve on its own without much human help. Many of the world's biggest AI companies are trying to build AGI. They believe it could one day solve very difficult problems across different industries.
Amazon AI leadership changes
Amazon has also seen leadership changes in its AGI division. Rohit Prasad, one of the company's top executives leading AGI work, left Amazon at the end of last year, according to the report by Reuters.
{{/usCountry}}Amazon has also seen leadership changes in its AGI division. Rohit Prasad, one of the company's top executives leading AGI work, left Amazon at the end of last year, according to the report by Reuters.
{{/usCountry}}David Luan, who headed Amazon's AGI Lab, also left the company in February. In December, Amazon reorganised its AGI business. The company placed all AGI work under Senior Vice President Peter DeSantis. Peter DeSantis now oversees a larger technology group. This group includes AGI, silicon chip development, and quantum computing projects.
Also read: Disney layoffs: Hundreds of jobs cut across Pixar, ESPN and National Geographic
Employees hit by job cuts
Employees from two AGI teams said they were affected by the layoffs. The impacted teams were led by Adeeb Shanaa, Vice President of AGI Data Services, and Vishal Sharma, Vice President of AGI Information, according to Employees' posts on online forums, as reported by Reuters.
Reports about the job cuts first appeared on online forums where employees shared that they had been affected. However, Amazon has not confirmed how many workers were impacted. These layoffs follow Amazon's much larger job cuts earlier this year. In January, the company cut about 16,000 jobs across different parts of the business.
The latest layoffs show that Amazon is continuing to reshape its workforce. Even while investing heavily in AI, the company is reducing jobs in some teams as it shifts resources to its top priorities.