Amazon’s executive leadership is undergoing a significant transformation as the senior leader responsible for directing the company’s most advanced artificial intelligence initiatives prepares to leave his role. Rohit Prasad, who has served as Senior Vice President and head scientist, will depart from the e-commerce and technology giant two years after he established the company’s Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) group—an ambitious internal division designed to position Amazon at the forefront of next-generation machine intelligence.
According to CEO Andy Jassy, Prasad has communicated his intention to step down by the end of this year, marking the conclusion of a pivotal chapter in Amazon’s AI evolution. Prasad’s responsibilities expanded notably in 2023, when he was promoted to report directly to Jassy himself. This elevation reflected the company’s growing confidence in Prasad’s ability to guide Amazon’s vision for AGI—a venture characterized at the time by Business Insider as one of Amazon’s most daring and far-reaching undertakings in the field of artificial intelligence. The central mission of his team was to design and construct the corporation’s most sophisticated AI models, capable of challenging industry leaders that had set new benchmarks in machine learning capabilities.
In his tenure, Prasad oversaw the development and public introduction of Amazon’s Nova series of AI models, a technological suite that represented a considerable leap in efficiency and performance for the company’s internal systems. Although the Nova family drew modest acclaim from industry observers for its streamlined design and operational speed, analysts have noted that these models continue to trail behind high-profile competitors such as OpenAI’s GPT models, Anthropic’s Claude Opus series, and Google’s Gemini platform—all regarded as defining examples of frontier AI technology.
As part of the broader organizational restructuring prompted by this leadership change, Amazon is forming a newly consolidated AI and advanced computing unit under the leadership of Peter DeSantis, who currently serves as Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Senior Vice President of Utility Computing. In Jassy’s statement, he emphasized that this new division will not only assume responsibility for the company’s AGI and advanced AI model development but will also direct efforts in highly specialized areas such as silicon chip innovation and experimental quantum computing research—fields that are expected to shape the next era of computational efficiency and AI scalability.
Additionally, Jassy confirmed that Pieter Abbeel, a renowned robotics expert, academic, and co-founder of the AI and robotics company Covariant, will take on an expanded leadership role. Having joined Amazon in 2023, Abbeel will now lead the enterprise’s frontier AI model research team, signifying Amazon’s intention to strengthen its position in the race to produce more powerful and adaptable machine learning systems capable of matching or surpassing rival offerings.
Prasad’s departure represents yet another change in the ongoing series of executive transitions within AWS’s leadership ranks. Over the past year, the cloud division has experienced multiple high-level departures, including those of Matt Wood, formerly Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, and Vasi Philomin, who previously oversaw generative AI initiatives. At the same time, AWS has strategically recruited new talent to maintain momentum and inject fresh perspectives into its innovation strategy. Among these new hires are Julia White, formerly a top Microsoft executive who joined as Chief Marketing Officer; David Richardson, now serving as Vice President of AgentCore; Joe Hellerstein, appointed Vice President and Distinguished Scientist; and Chet Kapoor, who recently assumed the role of Vice President for security services and observability.
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Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-agi-executive-leaving-ai-models-rohit-prasad-2025-12
