As part of its ongoing cost-cutting efforts, Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are both departing the firm, along with hundreds of other employees at Alphabet’s Google.
Google announced that it will fire hundreds of employees from its Voice Assistant division and reduce several hundred positions from the hardware team, which is in charge of Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit.
The augmented reality (AR) division will be the majority of the layoffs.
Google bought Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2021. Google has been updating the Pixel Watch, which competes with Fitbit and the Apple Watch, since then.
“Several of our teams made changes in the second part of 2023 to boost productivity and focus resources to the most important product goals.
A Google representative told Reuters in a statement that “some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organisational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”
Following the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, firms like Google and Microsoft (MSFT.O) are placing bets on the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which coincides with the reorganisation of some teams.
Google revealed ambitions to upgrade its virtual assistant with creative AI features last year. AI would enable the assistant to perform tasks like assisting with travel arrangements or email catch-up, followed by follow-up inquiries.
The representative did not disclose the number of roles that are specifically affected. It was not immediately apparent how many individuals work on the Devices and Services and Google Assistant software teams.
Alphabet, the company that owns the company, stated in January of last year that it intended to eliminate 12,000 positions globally, or 6% of its total workforce.
In September 2023, Alphabet employed 182,381 people worldwide.
