Monday, January 9, 2023

Amazon Won't Give Up On Alexa Despite It Being The Cause Of Its Biggest Layoff To Date

Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa may not be bringing in the desirable results that it envisioned but that doesn’t mean the company is giving up, just yet.

The tech giant’s hardware chief is letting the world know that even though the team behind the creation was the main target of the recent firing spree, it’s still going to continue with the product.

Amazon made headlines recently when it opted to fire hundreds, making this the biggest layoff in the firm’s history. Just last year, Amazon started to fire officers from its corporate workforce, since it was a major part of the firm’s plan to rid away expenses due to the worsening outlook of the economy. This was coupled with extremely slow growth in revenue too.

Meanwhile, it was observed how the firm’s devices and services sector that oversaw the production of such goods as voice assistants, smart speakers, and even e-readers were among those affected big time.

Around 2000 individuals in the Limp sector were allowed to go due to such job cuts as mentioned by CNBC’s leading journalist Jon Fortt while conducting an interview for TechCheck.

Meanwhile, in the past week, the firm mentioned how it was on the move to get rid of 18,000 roles that were linked to both the HR division and its stores. On the other hand, one person who was familiar with such a matter mentioned to CNBC how 10,0000 employees may be fired but this was a figure that had the tendency to alter as it was flexible.

Other than the layoffs, the tech giant even put a pause on its new hiring of employees linked to the corporate workforce and shut out major experimental projects along the way too. This entails its telehealth service as well as its video calling option for children.

Amazon’s team was seen overlooking new projects that had a risk-reward factor attached and they claimed that there might not have been anything there that would give customers exactly what they were in search of. And a small part of that had to do with the voice assistant Alexa.

Despite all of these statements and findings, the company recently announced that it’s still optimistic and won’t be giving up on it, just yet. It’s getting to be super disciplined in terms of expenses as the economy right now is super uncertain.

The tech giant reiterated that despite laying off plenty of employees across the board, there are still plenty working on the initiative as the project is huge.

It was first launched in the year 2014, and that was a time when Amazon made huge investments in the likes of Alexa and was seen assigning top talent to make that tech sector grow. This was all thanks to the directions provided by Jeff Bezos, who was the actual person that pitched such an idea in the first place.

He strongly felt that this product was the voice that could revolutionize how people interact with things like electronic devices of the future. There was even a point where 5000 people were working on just the likes of Alexa and Echo and that just goes to show how keenly invested they were in the ordeal.

Amazon was witnessed selling such products at or even near their cost as they felt the goal wasn’t to make revenue from them. Instead, they’re seeing it as a great chance for bringing in more customers toward the huge Amazon ecosystem. This is where they’re going to be buying huge things from the site or related properties.


Read next: Are You An Aspiring Future Tech Employee? Here Are The Top Tech Jobs And Their Pay In Major Tech Hubs
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

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