Amazon is reducing its workforce in the division responsible for its popular voice assistant, Alexa, as the company channels increased resources into artificial intelligence (AI). In a communication to employees on Friday, Daniel Rausch, Amazon's Vice President of Alexa and Fire TV, explained that certain roles are being eliminated due to the abandonment of specific initiatives, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Rausch stated, "As we continue to innovate, we're realigning some of our efforts to better match our business priorities and what we recognize as most important to customers, which includes optimizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI."

While Rausch did not provide an exact figure, he mentioned that "several hundred" positions would be affected by the restructuring. Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, is engaged in intense competition with other tech companies striving to leverage the growing interest in generative AI. The company has been actively incorporating AI into various initiatives, from integrating the technology into customer reviews to offering services that empower developers to create their own AI tools on the AWS cloud infrastructure.

In September, Amazon introduced an update to Alexa that enhances its capabilities with additional generative AI features. The job cuts announced on Friday will impact employees in the United States, Canada, and India.

These layoffs follow recent workforce reductions in Amazon's gaming and music teams and contribute to the 27,000 employees laid off by the company in the latter part of the previous year and early this year. Amazon's Alexa unit was also affected by those previous workforce reductions.