Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced a major leadership change in the company’s artificial intelligence division, confirming that Rohit Prasad will depart Amazon at the end of the year. The announcement was shared with employees through an internal blog post and marks a significant shift in how Amazon is structuring its long-term AI and advanced computing efforts.
Rohit Prasad has led Amazon’s artificial general intelligence team since 2023, where he oversaw the development of the company’s Nova family of AI models. Before taking charge of the AGI initiative, Prasad was closely associated with Amazon Alexa, serving as its chief scientist from the earliest stages of the voice assistant’s development. His move to head the AGI group followed the rapid rise of ChatGPT in late 2022, when Amazon accelerated its efforts to build competitive large language models that could modernize Alexa and support broader AI ambitions.
Rohit Prasad exit signals deeper AI reorganization
Andy Jassy said the company is consolidating its AI, silicon, and infrastructure strategy under a new leadership structure. Longtime Amazon Web Services executive Peter DeSantis will lead a newly formed organization responsible for AI model development, custom chips, and quantum computing initiatives. DeSantis has played a central role in building AWS’s global infrastructure and will now report directly to Jassy.
According to Jassy, this restructuring is intended to better align Amazon’s Nova models, its custom silicon such as Graviton, Trainium, and Nitro chips, and its cloud software and infrastructure. The company recently unveiled its Nova 2 models at the Re Invent conference, and leadership believes tighter integration across hardware and software will accelerate innovation.
As part of the changes, Amazon has also appointed Pieter Abbeel to lead its frontier model research team. Abbeel is an Amazon Distinguished Scientist and a professor of AI and robotics at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Amazon in 2024 following the company’s deal with robotics startup Covariant, which included licensing Covariant’s software and models designed to help robots adapt quickly to new tasks and environments.
The departure of Rohit Prasad comes as a surprise to some inside the company, especially since he appeared publicly at Re Invent to discuss Nova models. Over the past two years, however, Amazon’s Alexa and AGI efforts have faced scrutiny. Internal documents and employee accounts reported by Fortune have pointed to delays and technical challenges in Alexa’s AI overhaul, including data limitations that slowed progress despite intense internal pressure to deliver results.
These concerns were amplified by recent Amazon layoffs and external commentary questioning AWS’s competitive position in the AI cloud market. At the same time, Amazon has continued to make large strategic bets. The company is reportedly in discussions to invest billions of dollars in OpenAI, while OpenAI has agreed to use Amazon’s Trainium chips. Amazon has also invested heavily in Anthropic, whose Claude model now powers certain features in Alexa Plus.
With Rohit Prasad stepping away and new leaders taking charge, Amazon appears to be resetting its AI roadmap as it seeks to strengthen its position in an increasingly competitive global AI landscape.
Read Also: Mustafa Suleyman says Gemini 3 can do things Copilot cannot, outlines Microsoft’s AI red lines
