Amazon's Alexa voice assistant and the unit that maintains the product is set to lose around $10 billion this year according to reportsciting current and former employees with the company.
The news comes as Amazon leadership announced layoffs, with numbers that couldreportedly hitrecord highs.
Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy already announced recent layoffs for the company's devices and books businesses.
As Ars Technica reported, based off of company information, the Alexa division is part of Amazon's "Worldwide Digital" group that includes the brand's Amazon Prime video, which is said to have lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of this year.
Business Insidersaid "the vast majority" of losses are said to have stemmed from the Alexa division.
Business Insider said a dozen former and current Amazon employees were questioned from the hardware team and said it was "a division in crisis," calling it "a colossal failure of imagination," and "a wasted opportunity."
Employees with the Alexa voice-technology team are reportedly a significant focus as the company mulls layoffs, according to the Business Insider report, which came after a recent New York Times report on layoffs with the company.
As Fox Business reported, Dave Limp, a Senior Vice President of Devices and Services at Amazon said, "We are as committed as ever to Echo and Alexa, and will continue to invest heavily in them."
As Business Insider reported, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was engaged in developing Alexa when it was introduced in 2014, and was committed to investing heavily in it.
