Amazon Restructures AI Teams and Reduces Workforce

After a first wave of layoffs in January that eliminated 16,000 positions across the group, Amazon has further reduced staffing within its AGI organization, which develops advanced AI models. This reorganization affects teams working on Nova, a family of AI models designed to allow businesses to build intelligent assistants and autonomous agents without relying solely on competitors. Amazon says the decision is part of concentrating resources on the most important customer initiatives, not a withdrawal from AI. The company remains fully committed to the race for large language models, facing Microsoft and OpenAI, Google with Gemini, and Anthropic, a strategic partner of AWS. The organization's leadership has changed: Rohit Prasad and David Luan have left, and Peter DeSantis now oversees AI activities. These changes reflect the high costs of generative AI, with Amazon investing in custom AI chips like Trainium and Inferentia to reduce dependence and optimize costs.