Amazon lays off some employees in its AGI unit

Amazon is laying off some employees in its unit focused on artificial general intelligence, the company confirmed Wednesday, as it continues to cut jobs while pouring money into AI.

The company declined to disclose how many staffers were affected, or which parts of the AGI organization were exposed to the cuts. The AGI unit is focused on building AI models, and it also includes groups working on silicon development and quantum computing initiatives.

“This is a fast-moving space, and we’re sharpening our focus on the initiatives that matter most for customers, so we can move faster on what counts,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “That focus means some difficult decisions, including eliminating some roles within parts of our AGI organization, even as we continue to invest in the areas most important to our customers’ future.”

Reuters first reported the layoffs.

Amazon has been downsizing over the past several years following a pandemic hiring binge, and as it commits massive sums to building out AI infrastructure. The company has laid off more than 30,000 staffers since October, and has continued to eliminate roles through smaller rounds in recent months.

The AGI unit is a core part of Amazon’s AI strategy as the company tries to keep pace with leaders OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. AGI generally refers to AI that can perform as well or better than humans on most tasks.

In 2024, Amazon’s AGI group released a set of foundation models called Nova. The unit took on a more expansive focus last December when Amazon tapped longtime cloud executive Peter DeSantis to replace Rohit Prasad as the head of the group.

In February, Amazon lost the head of its AGI lab, David Luan, who joined the company in 2024 through a so-called acquihire of his startup Adept.

Amazon’s spokesperson said the company has been building large AI models for several years and “it remains one of the most important things we’re working on.”

DeSantis acknowledged in an interview with CNBC last month that Amazon’s models “haven’t been at the very frontier for the very largest, most demanding workloads.”

He said Amazon has been working to shore up its models further, and it hopes to have one of the “most capable intelligent models out there.”

Amazon is scheduled to report second-quarter results next week. The company has forecast capital expenditures for the year of $200 billion, an increase of more than 50% from 2025, and is raising tens of billions of dollars in debt to help fund its AI build-out.

WATCH: Amazon raising at least $25 billion in bond sale