Amazon said Wednesday that it is cutting jobs within its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) group. The company did not disclose how many employees were affected or which parts of the AGI unit were impacted by the layoffs. The AGI group focuses on building AI models and includes teams 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.”
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The AGI group is a core part of Amazon’s AI strategy as the company tries to keep up with competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. AGI generally refers to AI that can perform as well or better than humans on most tasks.
“We’ve been building large AI models for several years, and it remains one of the most important things we’re working on,” said an Amazon spokesman following a Reuters inquiry. “We’re sharpening our focus on the initiatives that matter most for customers, so we can move faster on what counts. That focus means some difficult decisions, including eliminating some roles within parts of our AGI organization.”
Rohit Prasad, a top Amazon executive overseeing AGI, left the company at the end of last year, and the head of its AGI Lab David Luan left in February. AGI work was consolidated under Senior Vice President Peter DeSantis in December 2025 as part of a larger group that also includes silicon development and quantum computing.
According to Reuters, employees under Adeeb Shanaa, vice president of artificial general intelligence data services, and Vishal Sharma, vice president of AGI information, reported being impacted by the cuts on online forums on Wednesday.
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Earlier this year, Amazon announced it had cut about 16,000 corporate jobs, bringing total layoffs to roughly 30,000 since October 2025, and signaled that more reductions could still be ahead.
While roughly 30,000 layoffs account for only a small slice of Amazon’s 1.58 million employees, most of whom work in warehouses and fulfillment centers, the cuts amount to nearly 10 percent of its corporate staff and mark the largest workforce reduction in the company’s three-decade history. The scale surpasses the roughly 27,000 jobs Amazon eliminated between late 2022 and early 2023.