Amazon is undergoing a significant shift in its AI leadership as Rohit Prasad, the driving force behind Amazon's artificial general intelligence (AGI) initiatives, is set to depart from the company at the end of 2025. In his place, Peter DeSantis, a 27-year Amazon veteran and a key figure in Amazon Web Services (AWS), will take the helm of a newly formed organization that consolidates AI, silicon, and quantum computing efforts.
According to a memo from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, this reorganization reflects Amazon's belief that it has reached an "inflection point" in AI and related technologies. The goal is to unify Amazon's most important AI investments, fostering tighter integration between its in-house silicon, AI model roadmap, and emerging quantum work. Jassy emphasized the importance of optimizing across models, chips, and cloud software and infrastructure.
Rohit Prasad, who joined Amazon in 2013, played a pivotal role in the development and growth of Alexa. He transitioned to lead Amazon's AGI initiative and the Nova foundation model program. Jassy credited Prasad for building a strong team, advancing differentiated technology, and establishing customer momentum around Amazon's generative AI platform.
Peter DeSantis, the incoming leader, has a long history of spearheading major technical initiatives at Amazon. He launched Amazon EC2, oversaw the acquisition of chip designer Annapurna Labs in 2015, and most recently led AWS Utility Computing, which includes compute, storage, database, and AI services. Jassy described DeSantis as a leader with "unusual technical depth" and a track record of "solving problems at the edge of what's technically possible". DeSantis will now report directly to Jassy.
As part of the organizational changes, Pieter Abbeel, an AI researcher and UC Berkeley professor who joined Amazon in 2024, will lead the company's frontier model research team. Abbeel's team will focus on building the base models for AGI, while he continues his work in robotics.
This leadership shift comes as technology companies are intensely competing to advance large language models and broader AI capabilities. Amazon is striving to gain share in the enterprise generative AI market. The company recently unveiled its comprehensive AI strategy and launched new Nova foundation models at its annual re:Invent conference. The Nova family includes six models optimized for different price and performance points.
The departure of Prasad was described as his own decision, with Jassy thanking him for his contributions to Amazon. It remains unclear what Prasad's next endeavor will be. The new structure under DeSantis aims to ensure tight integration between Amazon's in-house silicon, its AI model roadmap, and its emerging quantum work, with the goal of improving performance and cost for customers building on AWS.
