Amid the ongoing AI race, Amazon is set to shake up its AI leadership and structure, as Rohit Prasad, a senior executive leading the company’s artificial general intelligence (AGI) efforts, will leave by the end of the year. This comes as part of a larger reorganisation of Amazon’s artificial intelligence operations, the company said. CEO Andy Jassy announced that the AGI team will be merged into a newly expanded division that will also house Amazon’s silicon development and quantum computing initiatives. The combined unit will be led by Peter DeSantis, a long-time Amazon executive who is currently a senior vice president in the company’s cloud computing division.
In a note to employees, Jassy stated that the move is in response to what Amazon sees as an important moment for AI technologies, indicating a push to align key infrastructure and research efforts under a single leadership. DeSantis will report directly to Jassy under the new structure.
This reshuffle comes at a time when the company is looking to strengthen its position in a competitive AI space where competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have jumped ahead with high-profile LLM models and offerings. In recent months, Amazon has increased its efforts by introducing its own foundation models under the Nova brand and continuing to invest in its in-house Trainium AI chips, which are positioned as alternatives to Nvidia’s hardware.
Additionally, Amazon has appointed Pieter Abbeel to lead its frontier model research within the AGI group. Abbeel joined Amazon last year after it acquired robotics startup Covariant.
DeSantis, who joined Amazon in 1998, has been crucial in establishing Amazon Web Services over the last two decades. His most recent responsibilities included overseeing AWS computing services, which include core infrastructure like storage, databases, security, and custom silicon.
Prasad joined Amazon in 2013 and previously worked as chief scientist for Alexa before taking over the company’s AGI initiatives in 2023. Jassy credited Prasad with shaping Amazon’s long-term AI vision and laying the groundwork for the next phase of development.
Amazon said the changes are intended to sharpen focus across its AI, chip, and quantum teams as it accelerates technology development.