Amazon cutting jobs in artificial general intelligence group — Reuters

Amazon (AMZN) is eliminating jobs in its artificial general intelligence group, a research group tasked with developing models to power general-purpose, autonomous AI agents, Reuters reported Wednesday. 

The group created Amazon Nova Act, a tool that allows companies to build AI agents that can navigate websites and complete routine online tasks without human intervention.

"We've been building large AI models ​for several years, and it remains one of the ‌most ⁠important things we're working on," an Amazon spokesman said to Reuters. "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."

Despite committing $200B in capex for AI and cloud infrastructure development, the company has been eliminating jobs across the business to decrease bureaucracy and optimize resources. As part of a broader plan to eliminate 30K roles (many of which were part of a post-COVID hiring boom), Amazon (AMZN) has already laid off 16K employees this year.