Alphabet's (GOOGL.US) life sciences division Verily laid off employees on Monday and terminated its entire device projects. According to reports, CEO Stephen Gillett announced "this difficult decision" to terminate the projects in an employee memo. Gillett wrote: "Over the years, Verily has built a solid foundation in developing world-class, innovative medical devices." Gillett noted that as Verily refocuses on artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, the future development path will face many difficult choices.
This move continues Alphabet's strategy of actively investing in artificial intelligence while cutting costs in other areas. The company has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years, including layoffs in human resources and cloud business divisions in February, as well as a voluntary departure program for its more than 25,000 platform and device employees in the spring.
Alphabet's largest recent layoff occurred in January 2023, when the company cut 12,000 jobs - representing 6% of its workforce at the time - to respond to economic slowdown conditions. In the same year, the company's AI competitor ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer software application in history, with user numbers exceeding 100 million within two months, sparking the generative AI boom that now leads the direction of technology industry development.
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