Boston Dynamics hands the CEO job to former Amazon Alexa and AGI chief Rohit Prasad

Boston Dynamics said in a press release on Oct 6 that Rohit Prasad becomes chief executive effective Oct 7, filling the post Robert Playter left in February. Prasad spent 12 years at Amazon, where he ran Alexa and the company's artificial general intelligence work and led the Nova foundation model family, after nearly 14 years of machine-learning research at Raytheon BBN Technologies.

Hyundai Motor Group vice chair Jaehoon Chang, who chairs the Boston Dynamics board, said Prasad's record of commercialising AI products fits the push to scale Spot, Stretch and the electric Atlas. The hire puts an AI executive in charge as Atlas moves toward factory work: MEKAWIRE reported on Sep 21 that Boston Dynamics opened an Atlas training center at Hyundai's Georgia plant while Hyundai targets 25,000 humanoids.