According to The Wall Street Journal, a major cost-cutting review is headed up by Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, and he is looking at the company's voice assistant. According to documents seen by the WSJ, the company has had an operating loss greater than $5 billion in the past.
According to the WSJ, Amazon is looking into whether it should focus on trying to add new capabilities to the voice assistant. It is not clear what that means, but it appears that the company is looking at decreasing its investments in a product that does not bring in much money on its own.
The company didn't say how things would change. According to Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesman, "Alexa has turned into an artificial intelligence service that millions of customers interact with billion of times each week in different languages and cultures around the world." The last year has seen an increase in the number of interactions with Amazon's virtual assistant. It remains an important area of investment for Amazon and we are optimistic about the future.
Amazon is similar to other tech companies in that it is looking to tighten its belt. The company is expecting slower growth this holiday quarter despite its second Prime-focused sales event in October, and Jassy said in the company's recent Q3 earnings release that Amazon is "encouraged" by its efforts to lower costs.
While it may be looking to cut costs in some areas, it's still spending a lot in others.
Glasser said that they remain excited about the future of their larger businesses as well as newer initiatives like Prime Video. An annual operating plan review is part of the senior leadership team's review of investment outlook and financial performance. As part of this year's review, we're taking into account the current macro- environment and looking at opportunities to maximize costs.
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