Amazon’s latest hiring hints at the company’s efforts to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) team. The US-based e-commerce major has hired the co-founders, including CEO David Luan, and several other key members of the San Francisco-based AI startup, Adept. With this move, Amazon aims to shed the image of lagging in the competitive AI landscape.
In a blog post, Adept also confirmed that Zach Brock, Head of Engineering, will be taking over as the company’s new CEO. The company also noted that it will remain an independent company and the deal involves Amazon licensing some of Adept's automation technology. However, the details of this non-exclusive agreement, including the fee amount, remain under wraps.
According to a report by the news agency Reuters, familiar sources have claimed that Adept also held discussions with other tech companies including Meta. However, the social media giant decided not to pursue a tie-up or partnership with the startup.
Role of former Adept workers at Amazon
In a statement Reuters, an Amazon spokesperson has also confirmed that the Adept employees have already joined the company and about 20 Adept workers remain at the startup.
The report also claims that Amazon has assigned the incoming Adept team to different areas. The startup’s former CEO Luan, along with some others, will work under Rohit Prasad, who leads Amazon's Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team focused on advanced AI development.
Meanwhile, other Adept recruits are expected to join teams working on devices and various Amazon services. This move by Prasad (formerly head of Alexa and now reporting directly to CEO Andy Jassy), signifies a concentrated effort within Amazon to unify its AI initiatives.
He has already combined researchers from Alexa AI and the Amazon science team to work on training models, demonstrating a commitment to pooling resources for AI progress.
In a memo, Prasad also said that the new hirings "will significantly help us on our quest to achieving AGI."
The report also claims that Amazon is investing in the training of a new an more powerful large language model to compete with top models from Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet-owned Google.
The recent additions from Adept indicate the tech giant's intent to develop AI agents tools, a field that major labs are currently focusing on.
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