Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announces departure of AI executive Rohit Prasad in leadership shake-up

Amazon is undergoing a shake-up in its artificial intelligence leadership, with Rohit Prasad, a key figure behind Alexa, leaving the company. CEO Andy Jassy announced the departure alongside the appointment of Peter DeSantis to head a new division focused on AI model development, custom chips, and quantum computing.

DeSantis, a long-time Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive, will now oversee the teams responsible for designing AWS's global infrastructure. This move, according to Jassy, is intended to allow DeSantis to dedicate his focus and leadership to these critical areas, particularly with the recent launch of Nova 2 models and the growth of Amazon's custom silicon efforts. DeSantis will report directly to Jassy.

In addition to DeSantis's expanded role, Pieter Abbeel, an Amazon Distinguished Scientist in robotics and a professor at UC Berkeley, will lead Amazon's frontier model research team. Abbeel, who joined Amazon in 2024 following Amazon's acquisition of his robotics startup Covariant, brings expertise in generative AI and reinforcement learning. His company Covariant pioneered the first commercial foundation model for robotics. Amazon also licensed Covariant's AI-powered software that enables robots to quickly adapt to new tasks and environments.

Prasad's exit is somewhat unexpected, especially considering his recent appearance at Amazon's Re:Invent conference where he discussed the latest Nova models. That said, the reality is a bit more complicated. his departure comes after reports of struggles and setbacks within Amazon's Alexa and AGI initiatives, which have reportedly lagged behind competitors. Reports have highlighted flaws in Alexa's AI reboot and a perceived failure to capitalize on the AI boom, partly attributed to data limitations.

Concerns about Amazon's AI progress have also been fueled by recent layoffs and comments from analysts. Mark Shmulik of Bernstein suggested in October that Amazon's AWS was in "last place" in the AI cloud race. The shift in leadership reflects Amazon's efforts to address these challenges and accelerate its AI development.