Amazon Will Cut 'Several Hundred' Alexa Jobs as It Ends Unspecified Initiatives

Amazon will eliminate several hundred roles in its Alexa division as part of a broader shift in priorities and a focus on developing new forms of artificial intelligence, according to an internal memo sent to employees Friday morning. From a report: "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," wrote Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, in the memo, obtained by GeekWire. "These shifts are leading us to discontinue some initiatives, which is resulting in several hundred roles being eliminated."

Alexa, Find Me a New Job

[Press2ToContinue]

Well, it looks like Alexa just got her most challenging query yet: "Alexa, how do I explain to several hundred people that they're part of 'shifting business priorities'?" In a world where we're teaching AI to write poetry, make art, and probably even crack jokes better than I do, Amazon's taken a bold step to, let's say, 'optimize' their team.

It's like that time Google tried to make a social network - ambitious, futuristic, but we all know how that turned out. Or remember when everyone was buying up VR

Re:

[Press2ToContinue]

Stand-up comedy's loss is clearly the tech world's gain with your sharp wit around.

Re: Alexa, Find Me a New Job

[drinkypoo]

"It's like that time Google tried to make a social network - ambitious, futuristic"

What was futuristic about Google+?

"but we all know how that turned out"

Yes, they figured out it wasn't going to make money so they made it part of their business offering and shut down the public version as soon as it got good and people were starting to use it.

Opinion

[ElizabethGreene]

They're missing an opportunity here. Modern LLMs are finally at the point where Alexa could have real conversations and be extremely useful. I don't know how you'd monetize that, but making it a prime-only feature seems like an obvious first step.

They just removed the IFTT integration. :(

Re:Opinion

[HBI]

The sad part for them is that they are about to see a bunch of first adopters go to local voice control and lose them forever as a result of the change in focus.

Re:

[EvilSS]

You hit on the problem: monetization. Echos are extremely popular, but Amazon hasn't found a way to make the ongoing development costs for Alexa worth it. The dream was that it would be a low-friction way for people to order products and increase Amazon store sales. "Alexa, order dog food." The problem is, no one really does that. It never caught on and probably never will. So Amazon is losing money on maintaining the back end. A decent LLM would be an awesome addition, but implementing/running them costs m

Re:

[kingbilly]

Yeah and as someone who's last 12 years of income is thanks to the Amazon marketplace, I'm not surprised.
I have an Alexa, but I also know that not only are there many results for Dog Food, but even if Alexa knew the exact product I wanted, there are going to be multiple sellers on that same product. Some might have short dated inventory, some might not. Some offers might be 2-day free for Prime, other ones may not.
If the prime offer is out of stock, do I want Amazon to automatically go with someone else wh

Alexa kill kenny

[Joe_Dragon]

Alexa kill kenny

Nobody Works on Alexa

[crow]

As someone who bought an Amazon Echo when it first came out, I was a bit disappointed a the time that it wasn't smarter. I expected with all the money they were claiming on investing in it, they would be analyzing queries that it failed to understand and using that to work to make it smarter and improve what it could do.

But no.

Years went by, and Alexa didn't change one bit.

Massive investment with nothing to show for it. My only guess is that the engineering was all about incorporating Alexa into more and more products, with no work on actually making it do more.

That said, I haven't seen any improvement in Google Home Assistant, either, but I also haven't heard Google claiming to have invested billions into it.

Re:

[timeOday]

I've been baffled by Google Assistant on my Android phone in the same way. It's like 1% as smart as ChatGPT. Why?

Terrible for years

[itamblyn]

Alexa has been terrible for years. I bought the initial device when it first came out and continued to buy hardware when it was on sale during Prime Day, Black Friday, etc. I was so hopeful that it was going to be a new way to interact with technology. What a disappointment. For example, I listen to exactly two radio stations: CBC Radio One Ottawa, and KQED. Invariably, when I say "Alex, play CBC Radio One Ottawa", it will mishear me and launch a radio station that has a very dissimilar name. It is clear t

"Alexa, find me a new job"

[Tablizer]

..."Sorry Dave, but all available openings are being replaced by PodGPT"

Alexa!

[AmazingRuss]

Stop!