Google said it will lay off hundreds of people in its Voice Assistant unit, several hundred positions will be eliminated in the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, and most of the people in the augmented reality (AR) team will be laid off, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of roles in the central engineering team at the search engine will also be affected, the company said.
A Google spokesperson said some teams are continuing to make such organizational changes, including the elimination of some roles globally.
GOOGLE PLANS TO ADD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES TO ITS VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
Last year, Google announced plans to add productive AI features to its virtual assistant.
The AI will allow the assistant to do things like help people plan a trip or keep track of their emails and then ask follow-up questions.
ANNOUNCED PLANS TO LAY OFF 12,000 PEOPLE
In January 2023, Google's owner Alphabet announced plans to lay off 12,000 people, equivalent to 6 percent of its global workforce.
While Google did not disclose how many people were laid off in its statement today, Alphabet had 182,381 employees worldwide as of September last year.
