Amazon Bolsters AGI Development by Hiring Top Talent from Adept AI Labs

Key Executive Hires

Amazon.com Inc. is significantly strengthening its artificial general intelligence (AGI) efforts by hiring key executives and employees from Adept AI Labs Inc. David Luan, co-founder and former CEO of Adept, will lead Amazon’s AGI Autonomy division under the guidance of Rohit Prasad. Along with Luan, a few other deeply talented team members will join Amazon, helping to licence Adept’s technology to automate software workflows.

Financial and Strategic Context

Adept AI Labs previously raised $350 million at a valuation of over $1 billion from investors including General Catalyst and Spark Capital. The company will continue to operate separately with a more product-focused mission, while Amazon integrates their expertise in multimodal foundational models and real-world digital agents.

Amazon’s Broader AI Initiatives

Amazon’s AI initiatives span a wide range of applications. These include a shopping chatbot, AI tools for retail sites, and AI-models-for-rent through its cloud-computing services. This move aligns Amazon with other tech giants like Microsoft and Google in the race to develop comprehensive AGI solutions. Amazon has also pumped billions of dollars into OpenAI competitor Anthropic and plans to overhaul its Alexa voice assistant with a new paid version featuring generative AI capabilities.

Impact on Adept AI Labs

Zach Brock, Adept’s head of engineering, will take over as CEO, leading a team of about 20 employees to continue working on agentic AI solutions. This strategic shift allows Adept to focus more on product development rather than extensive fundraising efforts.

Industry Context

The Adept agreement comes at a time when technology companies are increasingly hiring from well-funded AI startups building costly foundational models. For instance, in March, Microsoft hired a large portion of the staff of Inflection AI and arranged a deal to licence its technology for $650 million, though this has since come under antitrust scrutiny by the FTC.

Leadership and Organisational Changes at Amazon

Amazon recently announced significant leadership changes within its AI and cloud units. Adam Selipsky, the head of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will be stepping down and will be succeeded by Matt Garman, the head of sales and marketing at AWS. Prasad, who previously served as a head scientist for Alexa, was tapped in August to steer Amazon’s development of AGI.

Quotes from Leadership

“David and his team’s expertise in training state-of-the-art multimodal foundational models and building real-world digital agents aligns with our vision to delight consumer and enterprise customers with practical AI solutions,” wrote Rohit Prasad in a note to Amazon staff. Luan will report to Prasad as the leader of the AGI autonomy team and the automations team.

Adept AI views on partnership.

As part of Friday’s agreement, Amazon will license Adept’s technology, multimodal models and some datasets, which “will accelerate our roadmap for building digital agents that can automate software workflows,” Prasad wrote. Amazon is using the technology under a non-exclusive license, the company said.

“David and his team’s expertise in training state-of-the-art multimodal foundational models and building real-world digital agents aligns with our vision to delight consumer and enterprise customers with practical AI solutions,” Prasad said.

Adept confirmed the move in a blog post. The company noted that developing its own AI models would’ve required more capital, and said the Amazon deal will allow it to focus on building agents. Adept will continue to operate as a standalone company after Luan and other execs join Amazon. How can i write about this in my newsletter.

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