Rohit Prasad, one of Amazon’s most senior AI executives and the leader of its artificial general intelligence unit, will leave the company at the end of the year, Amazon confirmed on Wednesday. His departure comes alongside a broader restructuring of the company’s AI and advanced technology teams.
In a blog post, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company is reorganising its AGI group under a newly expanded division that will also house Amazon’s silicon development and quantum computing efforts. The combined organisation will be led by Peter DeSantis, a 27-year Amazon veteran and senior vice president within Amazon Web Services.
Jassy described the move as a response to what he called an “inflection point” in AI and related technologies. By bringing AGI, custom chips, and quantum computing under one leader, Amazon aims to sharpen execution and present a more unified strategy as competition in the AI space intensifies.
The shake-up comes as Amazon works to counter a growing perception that it is trailing rivals such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic in the race to deliver cutting-edge AI products. Over the past year, the company has launched its own family of foundation models, branded Nova, and continued to invest heavily in Trainium, its in-house AI accelerators designed to compete with Nvidia’s dominant chips.
“With the foundation that’s been built, the traction we’re seeing, and Peter’s leadership bringing unified focus to these technologies, we’re well-positioned to lead and deliver meaningful capabilities for our customers,” Jassy wrote. He added that the technologies being grouped under the new division will play a central role in shaping Amazon’s long-term future.
Under the new structure, DeSantis will report directly to Jassy. Amazon is also appointing Pieter Abbeel to lead its frontier model research team within the AGI organisation. Abbeel joined Amazon in 2024 following its acquisition of robotics startup Covariant and is a well-known figure in AI and robotics research.
DeSantis joined Amazon in 1998 and was involved in the early formation of AWS, initially serving as a general manager before rising through the ranks. He became a senior vice president in 2016 and, for the past four years, has overseen AWS’s core computing products, including compute, storage, databases, security, and custom chip development.
Prasad joined Amazon in 2013 and previously served as the chief scientist for Alexa, where he played a key role in shaping the voice assistant’s underlying intelligence. He was appointed to lead Amazon’s AGI efforts in 2023, tasked with pushing the company toward more general-purpose AI systems.
In his memo, Jassy praised Prasad’s contributions, calling him “missionary, passionate, and selfless,” and thanked him for his leadership, technical vision, and the foundations he helped build.
The leadership change signals a pivotal moment for Amazon’s AI ambitions, as the company seeks to align its research, infrastructure, and long-term bets more closely in an increasingly crowded and fast-moving field.
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