Chatbot startup Character.AI has laid off at least 5% of its staff, The Information reported on Thursday, citing a source informed by company leaders.
The laid-off employees were mainly from the marketing and recruiting teams, according to the report.
“We are refocusing the company to ensure all roles align with our new direction to build personalized AI (artificial intelligence) products,” a Character.AI spokesperson told Reuters.
“As a result, we have made a small reduction in our workforce,” the spokesperson said, without giving the numbers of the laid off employees.
Earlier this month, the startup signed a deal with Alphabet’s Google, giving the tech giant a non-exclusive license to the startup’s large language model technology.
As part of this deal, Character.AI will receive additional funding from Google, although the startup did not disclose the amount in its blog post.
Previously, Character.AI raised $193 million in venture capital from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz. In November, Reuters reported that the startup was in talks to raise hundreds of millions more from Google.
