Amazon cuts roles in artificial general intelligence group

Amazon has eliminated some jobs in the unit responsible for artificial general intelligence, CNBC reported, adding to a series of targeted reductions while the company continues to fund large artificial intelligence investments. The company did not say how many employees were affected, while its broader workforce cuts have totaled more than 30,000 roles since last October, according to CNBC.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the reductions to CNBC on Wednesday and said the company was concentrating resources on the initiatives it sees as most relevant to customers. The spokesperson said that approach had led to role eliminations in parts of the AGI organization, while Amazon continues to invest in areas it considers central to customers’ future needs.

Reuters first reported the latest cuts, according to CNBC.

The AGI group sits within one of Amazon’s most closely watched investment areas. Artificial general intelligence is commonly used to describe systems capable of matching or exceeding human performance across most tasks. At Amazon, the group works on AI models and also includes teams focused on silicon development and quantum computing initiatives, CNBC reported.

The unit released Nova, a family of foundation models, in 2024. Foundation models are large AI systems trained on broad sets of data that can be adapted for uses such as text generation, coding, reasoning or other enterprise tasks. Amazon has been developing large AI models for several years, and the company’s spokesperson told CNBC the work remains among its most important projects.

Amazon expanded the AGI group’s remit last December when it named Peter DeSantis, a longtime cloud executive, to succeed Rohit Prasad as head of the organization, CNBC reported. In February, David Luan, who led Amazon’s AGI lab, left the company. Luan had joined Amazon in 2024 through an acquihire of Adept, his startup.

The reductions come as Amazon tries to strengthen its position against AI leaders including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, according to CNBC. In a CNBC interview last month, DeSantis said Amazon’s models had not been at the top tier for the largest and most demanding workloads. He said the company was working to improve the models and aimed to produce one of the most capable intelligent models available.

Amazon’s job cuts follow a period of rapid hiring during the pandemic and a subsequent push to reduce headcount across the company, CNBC reported. The latest AGI reductions are smaller and more targeted than the broad layoffs announced in October and January, according to CNBC.

At the same time, Amazon is increasing spending on computing capacity and other infrastructure needed to train and run AI systems. The company has forecast $200 billion in capital expenditures for the year, more than 50% above 2025, CNBC reported. It is also raising tens of billions of dollars in debt to help finance the buildout, including a bond sale of at least $25 billion cited by CNBC.

Amazon is scheduled to report second-quarter results next week.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.