Amazon AGI chief Rohit Prasad to exit as Andy Jassy revamps AI leadership

Amazon’s artificial general intelligence (AGI) chief Rohit Prasad will leave the company at the end of the year, marking a key leadership change as the tech giant undertakes a broader reorganisation of its AI and advanced technology teams.

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The departure was confirmed by Amazon on Wednesday. In a blog post, chief executive Andy Jassy said the company is restructuring its AGI unit under a newly expanded organisation that will also oversee Amazon’s custom silicon development and quantum computing initiatives. The combined division will be led by Peter DeSantis, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and a 27-year veteran of the company.

Jassy described the move as a response to an “inflection point” in artificial intelligence and related technologies, arguing that tighter integration across research, infrastructure and long-term bets would help Amazon execute more effectively.

“By bringing AGI, custom chips, and quantum computing under one leader, we’re able to drive stronger alignment, faster decision-making, and a more cohesive strategy,” Jassy said, adding that these technologies would play a central role in shaping Amazon’s future.

Under the new structure, DeSantis will report directly to Jassy. Amazon has also appointed Pieter Abbeel to lead its frontier model research team within the AGI organisation. Abbeel joined Amazon in 2024 following the company’s acquisition of robotics startup Covariant and is a prominent figure in AI and robotics research.

DeSantis, who joined Amazon in 1998, played a central role in the early development of AWS and rose through the ranks to become a senior vice president in 2016. For the past four years, he has overseen AWS’s core computing businesses, including compute, storage, databases, security and custom chip development.

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Prasad joined Amazon in 2013 and previously served as chief scientist for Alexa, where he helped shape the voice assistant’s underlying intelligence. He was appointed to lead Amazon’s AGI efforts in 2023, with a mandate to advance the company’s work on more general-purpose AI systems.

In his memo, Jassy praised Prasad’s contributions, calling him “missionary, passionate, and selfless,” and credited him with laying important technical and organisational foundations for Amazon’s AI ambitions.

The leadership changes underscore a pivotal moment for Amazon as it seeks to bring greater coherence to its AI strategy and accelerate progress in an increasingly crowded and fast-moving field.