In a cost-cutting move, Google announces significant layoffs across various divisions, including its Voice Assistant unit, hardware team (Pixel, Nest, Fitbit), and augmented reality (AR) team. This restructuring comes as Google continues to evolve its offerings amidst the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the tech industry.
Alphabet's Google announced on Wednesday that it is reducing its workforce by laying off hundreds of employees from various teams. The co-founders of Fitbit, James Park and Eric Friedman, will also be departing from the company. This move is part of Google's ongoing cost-cutting efforts.
Google said it will lay off hundreds at its Voice Assistant unit, while a few hundred roles are being eliminated in the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, with the majority of people in the augmented reality (AR) team being let go. Hundreds of roles in the search giant's central engineering team are also being impacted, the company said.
Google has revealed plans to reduce its workforce significantly in various divisions. This includes layoffs in the Voice Assistant unit, as well as several hundred job cuts within the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit products. The augmented reality (AR) team is seeing a substantial reduction in its workforce, with majority team being let go.
The central engineering team at the search giant is also not immune to these cuts, with hundreds of roles being affected, according to the company's announcement.
In 2021, Google acquired Fitbit, a health and fitness tracking company, for $2.1 billion. Despite this acquisition, Google has been actively introducing updated versions of its Pixel Watch, which directly competes with certain Fitbit devices and the Apple Watch.
"Throughout 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," as told by a Google spokesperson to Reuters in a statement
The spokesperson did not provide specific details regarding the exact number of roles affected. Currently, the data on how many individuals are part of the Google Assistant software and other teams within the company is not clear.
The restructuring of specific teams coincides with a period in which companies such as Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google are placing significant bets on the growing incorporation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This occurence seems to be a consequent result of the notable success of OpenAI's ChatGPT.
In the previous year, Google unveiled its intentions to integrate generative AI capabilities into its virtual assistant. This AI consolidation would empower the assistant to perform tasks like assisting individuals in trip planning or email management, and it would have the capability to pose follow-up questions as well.
In January 2023, Alphabet made an announcement about its intention to cut its workforce by 12,000 positions, which is approximately 6% of its total global workforce.
By September 2023, Alphabet's global workforce numbered 182,381 employees.