It's no secret that Essential's been faced with rough waters for the past few months, but things appear to be worse than some might have expected. According to a report from Bloomberg, the Andy Rubin startup has now let go about 30% of its entire workforce.
Essential's hardware and sales teams were the main focus of these cuts, and in an email, a spokeswoman for Essential said the following:
This has been a difficult decision to make. We are very sorry for the impact on our colleagues who are leaving the company and are doing everything we can to help them with their future careers. We are confident that our sharpened product focus will help us deliver a truly game changing consumer product.
That "truly game changing consumer product" likely refers to the AI-focused device that we learned about earlier in the month. That report claimed that Essential's next smartphone will primarily be focused around artificial intelligence and voice commands — creating a phone that knows what you want to do and results in you spending less time looking at a screen.
This mystery phone could be unveiled as soon as CES next January, but don't hold your breath for it quite yet. Essential's already canceled the Essential Phone 2 and its Essential Home in months prior, and now with this round of staff cuts, the company's future is more uncertain than ever before.
Essential is reportedly making a phone based primarily on voice commands
