1000+ employees let go from Google's assistant and hardware teams.

Google is laying off over 1,000 employees across multiple divisions, including engineering, services, Google Assistant, Pixel hardware, and Nest and Fitbit devices. This comes after 12,000 layoffs at Google last year.

What's going on here?

1000+ employees let go from Google's assistant and hardware teams.

What does this mean?

Google is restructuring and downsizing teams to align resources with top priorities. Layoffs cover its Google Assistant team and hardware (especially AR). Layoffs in its ad services units are expected to happen soon.

Google is facing growing competition in AI and hardware from companies like Amazon and startups. Rabbit R1 sales were more than $4M (though chump change for Google) in 48 hours. Amazon is adding LLMs and other AI-powered skills to Alexa by partnering with AI startups.

Why should I care?

The Information’s founder Jessica Lessin thinks we shouldn’t count Google out. Layoffs hint that it’s getting rid of the bloat and has serious plans to get AI into products. With talent like Fitbit’s founders leaving along with this “restructure” there is the other end of predictions: Google is (yet again) falling behind.