In a significant leadership reshuffle, Amazon's artificial intelligence chief, Rohit Prasad, is set to depart the e-commerce and cloud giant at the end of this year. The move was confirmed by CEO Andy Jassy in a detailed blog post, which also outlined a major reorganization of the company's ambitious artificial generative intelligence (AGI) unit.
A New Frontier Organization Takes Shape
Jassy announced the creation of a new, expansive division that will consolidate Amazon's most advanced AI models, its custom silicon development, and its quantum computing efforts. This powerful new unit will be spearheaded by Peter DeSantis, a 27-year Amazon veteran who currently serves as a senior vice president within Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The CEO explained that the restructuring is a natural evolution for Amazon's growing tech initiatives. "At Amazon, we often start new businesses in parts of the company where there’s an initial customer need, and as they grow and get momentum, we assess where they’re best situated to maximize potential," Jassy wrote. He believes the company has reached an "inflection point" with several new technologies that will define future customer experiences.
Leadership Transition and Tributes
Rohit Prasad, who joined Amazon in 2013 during the formative days of the Alexa voice assistant, played a pivotal role in building it into a conversational AI used by hundreds of millions globally. For the past two years, he led the creation of Amazon's Nova AI models and the AGI organization, delivering a dozen state-of-the-art foundation models.
In his post, Jassy paid a heartfelt tribute to Prasad's contributions. "Rohit has built a strong team, differentiated technology, growing customer momentum, and a culture of ambitious invention. He’s been missionary, passionate, and selfless, and I'm grateful for his leadership," the CEO stated.
Stepping into this consolidated role is Peter DeSantis, a leader credited with some of AWS's most transformative technologies. His notable achievements include leading the launch of the revolutionary EC2 service in 2006, spearheading the acquisition of Annapurna Labs (Amazon's custom silicon team), and overseeing the massive AWS infrastructure spanning 38 regions and 120 Availability Zones worldwide.
Future Roadmap and Research Focus
As part of this reorganization, frontier model research within AGI will now be led by Pieter Abbeel, a world-renowned AI researcher and co-founder of Covariant. Abbeel will focus on advancing Amazon's base model research while continuing his work with the company's Robotics team.
Jassy expressed strong confidence in the new structure, emphasizing the advantages of optimizing across AI models, custom chips (like Graviton and Trainium), and cloud software. With the recent launch of the Nova 2 models and rapid growth in custom silicon, the CEO believes this unified focus under DeSantis's leadership positions Amazon to lead in delivering foundational technologies for its customers.
The path ahead for Amazon's AI ambitions is now charted under a veteran of its cloud wars, signaling a deeper integration of its cutting-edge research with its global-scale infrastructure.
