The executive who led Amazon’s efforts to build top AI models is out.
Rohit Prasad, SVP and head scientist, is leaving two years after launching a new Artificial General Intelligence group.
CEO Andy Jassy said Prasad plans to depart at the end of the year. Prasad was elevated to report directly to Jassy in 2023 to lead the AGI team, which was tasked with developing Amazon’s “most ambitious” AI models, Business Insider reported at the time.
Since then, Prasad helped launch Amazon’s Nova family of AI models. Although Nova models earned some praise for their efficiency, they still trail frontier models such as OpenAI’s GPT offerings, Anthropic’s Claude Opus, and Google’s Gemini.
As part of the shake-up, Amazon is creating a new organization under Peter DeSantis, AWS’s SVP of Utility Computing, Jassy said. The group will oversee Amazon’s AGI and AI model initiatives as well as its silicon chip and quantum computing efforts.
Jassy also said that Pieter Abbeel, the co-founder of robotics startup Covariant, who joined Amazon last year, will now lead the company’s frontier AI model research team.
Prasad’s departure is the latest in a series of leadership changes at AWS. Over the past year, the company has seen several executives depart, including VP of AI Matt Wood and VP of generative AI Vasi Philomin, while bringing in new talent such as former Microsoft executive Julia White as chief marketing officer.
AWS also recently hired David Richardson as VP of AgentCore and Joe Hellerstein as Vice President and Distinguished Scientist, and added Chet Kapoor as VP of security services and observability.
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