xAI cuts 500 roles as it shifts focus from generalist annotators to domain-specific AI tutors for Grok.

About 500 workers were let go by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, from its data annotation team, which was in charge of training Grok, its generative AI chatbot. The decision, which was announced late Friday night and was initially reported by Business Insider, highlights a change in the company's approach.

xAI informed staff members via email that it was prioritizing specialized AI tutors and reducing the number of generalist AI tutor positions. The company noted that after carefully examining their Human Data initiatives, they have decided to reduce their emphasis on broad AI tutoring and increase the number of their specialized AI tutors. Employees were told that although their salaries would be paid until the end of their contracts or by November 30 at the latest, their access to internal systems would be immediately terminated.

An important component of Grok's progress has been data annotators, sometimes known as AI tutors. Their tasks include categorizing data, offering illustrations, and assessing answers so the chatbot can get better over time. Although these positions were sometimes referred to as Grok's “backbone,” xAI currently states that it intends to hire ten times as many specialist AI tutors in fields including video games, web design, medicine, data science, and STEM.

The layoffs come after rumors circulated that several top annotation team members had their Slack accounts deactivated before the formal announcement. A few of the individuals impacted have experience with Musk's other businesses, such as Tesla's Autopilot division.