Amazon's massive layoffs have other employees worried, including Alexa's virtual assistant development division. But Amazon ensures they remain committed to developing their virtual assistant technology.
Amazon Hardware Chief Dave Limp, says they may not give up on developing Alexa so easily, even though the team behind the technology is the main target of the biggest layoffs in the company's history.
Amazon last year began laying off employees as part of CEO Andy Jassy's drive to keep costs down amid a deteriorating economic outlook and slowing revenue growth.
Quoted from CNBC, Amazon's devices and services division, which oversees the development of products such as Alexa, Echo smart speakers, and Kindle e-readers, is among the groups affected by this policy.
Nearly 2,000 people in the Limp division were laid off as a result of the layoffs. This week, Jassy said, Amazon will cut more than 18,000 roles, most of them employees in its stores and human resources organizations.
Previously, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC that 10,000 Amazon employees would be laid off. However, the source noted that the amount would not be fixed and could change at any time.
Along with the layoffs, Amazon also froze new hiring in its corporate workforce, and closed some of its more experimental projects, such as telehealth services and video calling devices for kids.
"What we did is, we looked at the projects that might be done in this uncertainty, the risk payoff for those projects. And what they might provide for the customer isn't just there, some is on Alexa, some is in other parts of my division, " he said.
"Still, Amazon is fully committed to its Alexa division even though the company is taking steps to be more cost-disciplined in a very uncertain economic environment," Limp said.
"There are still thousands of people working on this project. This is a big project," said Limp, speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, United States.
Since its launch in 2014, Amazon has invested heavily in Alexa and commissioned its best talent to develop virtual assistant technology.
Most of Alexa's development, it is known, was under the direct direction of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. When Alexa was first launched, Bezos firmly believed that voice features would play a key role in how people interact with computers in the future. In its development, Amazon has 5,000 employees who develop Alexa and Echo.