Google fires hundreds of employees in different areas – 01/11/2024 – Tech

Google announced this Wednesday (10) that it had laid off hundreds of employees across several teams. Among those laid off are Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman as part of the cost-cutting plan.

The tech giant said it will lay off hundreds of people in its voice assistant unit, while a few hundred roles are being eliminated on the hardware team responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, and the majority of people on the augmented reality team are being eliminated. being dismissed.

Hundreds of roles across the search giant’s core engineering team are also being affected, the company said.

Google bought health and fitness tracking company Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2021, but has continued to release new versions of its Pixel Watch, a product that competes with some of Fitbit’s devices as well as the Apple Watch .

“During the second half of 2023, several of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, as well as align their resources with their highest product priorities. Some teams continue to make these types of organizational changes, which include some eliminations of functions around the world,” a Google spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.

The spokesperson did not specify the number of functions being affected. It’s unclear how many people are part of the Google Assistant software and other teams.

The reorganization of certain teams comes at a time when companies like Microsoft and Google are betting on the growing adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology following the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Last year, Google announced plans to add generative AI capabilities to its virtual assistant. AI would allow the assistant to do things like help people plan a trip or catch up on emails and then ask follow-up questions.

In January 2023, Alphabet announced plans to cut 12,000, equivalent to 6% of its global workforce. Nine months later, the company had 182,381 employees worldwide.