Amazon shifts focus to AI, cuts hundreds of jobs in Alexa unit

US-based e-commerce and tech firm Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs in its voice assistant unit Alexa to focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

"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," Daniel Rausch, Amazon's vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, said on Friday in a written note to employees.

Rausch said "several hundred" positions would be affected, but did not provide a figure, while the move includes employees in the US, Canada, and India.

On Monday, Amazon also announced plans to cut over 180 jobs in its Amazon Games division, closing down some divisions handling streaming and third-party games.

As part of CEO Andy Jassy's efforts to lower costs, the company has cut approximately 27,000 jobs since last year.

Dozens of companies, especially in the technology sector, have been cutting jobs, as many industries are struggling with lower income, falling advertisement revenue, and fears of a recession in the US economy.

In recent months, Uber, Reddit, Disney, 3M, Yahoo, Affirm, Zoom, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, PayPal, and Google's parent company Alphabet have laid off workers by the thousands.