Amazon has cut an undisclosed number of jobs within its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) division, the unit responsible for building its large AI models, even as the company insists AI remains one of its top priorities. The move highlights a broader contradiction at play across the tech industry, where firms are simultaneously pouring huge sums into AI development while trimming the human workforce, including staff working directly on that technology.

The cuts form part of a wider restructuring in which Amazon has shed more than 30,000 jobs since October, including 16,000 announced in January, while committing roughly $200 billion in capital expenditure for 2026 towards AI infrastructure, custom chips and foundation models. Amazon has not disclosed exact numbers or affected teams, but employees have said the layoffs hit groups working on model customisation and post-training, with some citing cuts of around 10 percent; Reuters reported the reductions also affected teams led by AGI Data Services vice president Adeeb Shanaa and AGI Information vice president Vishal Sharma. The news comes less than a year after Amazon restructured its AI leadership under executive Peter DeSantis, who took charge of the AGI organisation to accelerate work on its Nova foundation models.