Voice Assistant losses are dragging Amazon and Google down. Alexa unit on track for a 10 Billion loss in 2022 alone. 10,000 job cuts looming. The original report is from Business Insider, however it is paywalled so arstechnica has a recap.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/
"We sell the Alexa hardware units at cost and all these idiots want to do is play Spotify or ask about the weather. We can't make money on that."
The Alexa division is part of the "Worldwide Digital" group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with "the vast majority" of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year.
Google reported similar frustrations monetizing their voice assistant, with job cuts also planned.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...pixel-hardware-cuts-google-assistant-support/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/
"We sell the Alexa hardware units at cost and all these idiots want to do is play Spotify or ask about the weather. We can't make money on that."
The Alexa division is part of the "Worldwide Digital" group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with "the vast majority" of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year.
Google reported similar frustrations monetizing their voice assistant, with job cuts also planned.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...pixel-hardware-cuts-google-assistant-support/