• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 11, 2024

Google is laying off hundreds of staff workers on its software, hardware and engineering teams -- mostly those working on the voice-based Google Assistant, in the augmented reality hardware unit, and some within the central engineering team.

“We’re responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead," a Google spokesperson wrote in an email to Media Daily News. "To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally."

The layoffs should not come as a surprise. Companies such as Google and Amazon have made a massive push into artificial intelligence (AI). Impacted employees will have an opportunity to apply for other open positions at Google.

The company wrote in a blog post Thursday that it will remove and change dozens of features beginning January 26. One feature that will change, the ability to use your voice to send an email, video or audio message. Google will still let people use their voice to make calls and send text messages.

The goal is to focus on quality and reliability, and that it will in the long run make it easier to use Assistant across devices.

Today's news is a follow-up from an announcement made in October that it would use its generative AI (GAI) chatbot Bard to build a new version of Google Assistant that “extends beyond voice, understands and adapts to you and handles personal tasks in new ways.”

James Park and Eric Friedman, the co-founders of Fitbit, will leave the company as part of the reorganization, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

An email sent to employees described the layoffs as "simplifying management layers and flattening our teams" to speed decision-making processes.

The Alphabet Workers Union posted on X last night that "Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!"

Amazon also laid off hundreds of employees in its Prime Video and MGM studios this week. Mike Hopkins, senior vice president at Amazon, who runs the streaming video and studio division, announced the cuts in an email to employees on Wednesday.