Amazon in its latest layoff episode, fired Employees serving in the artificial general intelligence group, marking its latest in a series of smaller reductions across the company since January.
The artificial general intelligence is a hypothetical unit that surpasses human intelligence and can learn, grow and operate autonomously. Many of the top companies currently are working to develop similar systems with the hope of deploying them to solve difficult problems.
Confirming the layoffs, Amazon in a media interaction, told that it was reducing roles in parts of its AGI organization while continuing to heavily invest in AI development.We’ve been building large AI models for several years, and it remains one of the most important things we’re working on,” said an Amazon spokesman following an inquiry. “We’re sharpening our focus on the initiatives that matter most for customers, so we can move faster on what counts. That focus means some difficult decisions, including eliminating some roles within parts of our AGI organization, it added”.
However, there have been no official information on how many employees were affected or specify which teams were impacted.According to employees posting their designation on online forums and social media platforms, workers involved in model customization, post-training, and other AGI-related functions are suspected to have been laid off.
Media houses reported that employees under Adeeb Shana, vice president of AGI Data Services, and Vishal Sharma, vice president of AGI Information, were also laid off.
The latest layoffs follow a leadership change in Amazon’s AI division. Rohit Prasad, who previously helmed AGI, left the company in the end of 2025, while David Luwon, head of Amazon’s AGI Labs, departed in February after joining through Amazon’s acquisition of AI startup Adept. Later in December previous year, Amazon consolidated its AGI work under Senior Vice President Peter DeSantis.Amazon has been continuously reducing its workforce following broader layoffs in the recent years.
The company this year cut around 16,000 jobs and has eliminated more than 30,000 positions since October 2022. At the same time, it continues to heavily invest in AI infrastructure. The company has forecast capital expenditures of $200 billion this year, 50% more than that in the previous year, while also raising tens of billions of dollars in debt to support its AI expansion.
Besides Amazon, Uber has also announced to cut its workforce by about 10% as it expands the use of artificial intelligence across its operations. The company said the move is aimed at simplifying the processes and improving efficiency, with AI being AI expected to handle a larger share of customer interactions. The ride-hailing company joins a growing list of firms that have now been incorporating AI into their businesses, not just to build new products but also to automate routine business functions. Customer support has emerged as one of the first areas where generated AI is being replaced by repetitive tasks once handled by humans. Yeah.