Amazon hires execs from Adept AI to push AI efforts

Amazon has hired the co-founders and some of the team from AI startup Adept to ramp up research around artificial intelligence technology. In a memo shared with employees on Friday, Rohit Prasad, a senior vice president and head scientist supervising Amazon’s AGI division, stated that the company had hired Adept co-founder and CEO David Luan along with “a few other deeply talented members to our AGI team.” Luan will be taking care of Amazon’s ‘AGI Autonomy’ segment, and report to Prasad, according to the memo. Similar to the Microsoft-Inflection deal, Amazon will pay Adept a certain unspecified licensing fee to use some of its AI agent technology that helps automate business tasks. Prasad also stated in the memo that the hires “will significantly help us on our quest to achieving AGI.” An Amazon spokesperson confirmed that while the Adept employees had already joined the company, around 20 of them still remained at the startup.