AI NewsWaveBoston Dynamics Brings in Former Amazon Executive Rohit Prasad as New CEO
Key points
- AI expert who led Amazon Alexa named CEO
- Hire aims to speed commercialization of physical AI
- Move coincides with Atlas mass-production preparations
Boston Dynamics, the robotics affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, has brought in Rohit Prasad, who led Alexa and AI research at Amazon, as its new chief executive officer (CEO). Prasad is described as an expert who has driven technological advances in conversational AI, generative AI, multimodal AI and artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Reports described the purpose of the appointment as strengthening competitiveness in physical AI. The idea is to combine AI with robot hardware to speed application at industrial sites and commercialization. Outlets differed on the timing of the announcement. Most reported that the company said so on the 7th, while Robot Newspaper wrote that it was announced on the 6th (local time) and that his term starts on the 7th.
Bloter noted that Boston Dynamics has brought in an AI platform expert rather than a roboticist as CEO. It analyzed that, as the deployment of the humanoid robot Atlas at Hyundai Motor Group's manufacturing sites and preparations for mass production get under way in earnest, AI learning and commercialization skills have become as important as physical performance.