Amazon confirmed on Wednesday that Rohit Prasad, the executive responsible for its general artificial intelligence (AGI) business, will leave the company at the end of this year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a blog post that as a supporting measure for personnel adjustments, the company will reorganize its general artificial intelligence department and merge it into a new, larger department. The new department will also cover the chip research and development team and the quantum computing team, and will be headed by Peter DeSantis, senior vice president of Amazon's cloud computing department and has been with the company for 27 years.
Rohit Prasad
Jassy said that the company judged that the development of artificial intelligence technology has reached an "inflection point" and therefore decided to reorganize and integrate its artificial intelligence-related teams.
Some industry observers believe Amazon has fallen behind its competitors in developing artificial intelligence products, a perception it is working to reverse. The company has launched the self-developed "Nova" series of basic models to compete fiercely with OpenAI, Google and artificial intelligence startup Anthropic; it has also created a self-developed "training-level" series of customized artificial intelligence chips to compete with similar products from Nvidia.
Jassy wrote in the blog: "Relying on the established technical foundation, the good progress currently made, and Peter's leadership to make these technical research and development efforts synergistic and focused on goals, we have a leading advantage and the ability to provide customers with high-value technical services. I am full of expectations for the future innovation results of this team, and I firmly believe that these core technologies will help shape Amazon's future."
Jassy also noted that DeSantis will report directly to him. In addition, Amazon also appointed Peter Abeer to lead the cutting-edge model research team under the general artificial intelligence department. Peter Abeer was the founder of robotics startup Covariant, and he joined Amazon after the company was acquired by Amazon in 2024.
DeSantis joined Amazon in 1998 and served as general manager in the early days of Amazon Web Services (AWS), rising through the ranks to become senior vice president in 2016. According to his LinkedIn page information, for the past four years, he has been responsible for leading the computing product team of Amazon Cloud Computing Services, with business scope covering computing, storage, databases, network security and custom chip research and development.
Prasad joined Amazon in 2013 and served as the chief scientist of the intelligent voice assistant "Alexei". He was later assigned the important task of leading Amazon's general artificial intelligence technology research and development in 2023.
Jassy commented in the memo: "Prasad approaches his work with a sense of mission, enthusiasm and selfless dedication. I sincerely thank him for his excellent leadership, forward-looking technical vision, and his many contributions to the development of the company."