- Adept co-founder David Luan and several other key members join Amazon to further strengthen Amazon’s Artificial General Intelligence team.
- Amazon’s move is an important part of its strategic layout in AI, marking that it will compete more fiercely with Google and Microsoft.
OUR TAKE
AGI is a more advanced technology than current generative AI, with near-human-level capabilities. Amazon’s move is to accelerate the layout of AGI research and development to achieve a “start” on the AI track. Amazon’s partnership with Adept is all the more remarkable in the context of U.S. regulators being on high alert for similar AI deals.
–Zora Lin, BTW reporter
What happened
Amazon and AI startup Adept reaches an agreement to hire Adept co-founder and CEO David Luan to join Amazon’s Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team and access the Adept’s technology On June 28. Also on board are the company’s co-founders Augustus Odena, Maxwell Nye, Erich Elsen and others.
Engineering director Zach Brock will take over as Adept’s chief executive. “Our products will continue to be powered by our existing combination of state-of-the-art in-house [AI] models, agent data, web interaction software and custom infrastructure,” Adept writes on its official blog.
Adept is founded two years ago with the goal of creating an AI model that can perform operations on any software tool using natural language. Adept has won backers including Nvidia, Atlassian, workday and others with its technology success, raising more than $415 million in funding and valuing it at around $1 billion. But the startup has been plagued by dysfunction and has struggled to bring any products to market. Perhaps this partnership between Adept and Amazon will get Adept across the finish line.
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Why it’s important
This move not only highlights Amazon’s determination to accelerate the layout of AGI field, but also reflects the urgent need for advanced AI technology and talent within the industry.
It’s worth noting that Amazon and Adept are not alone in teaming up with a large tech company and a small startup. Earlier, Microsoft’s acquisition of DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and executives from his startup Inflection AI showed the fierce competition among tech giants for AI talent and innovative technologies. As a key driver of future technologies, AI has become a core link in the strategic deployment of giant enterprises.
Amazon’s accelerated AGI development will also change all aspects of people’s production and life, enhance the intelligence and automation of society, and liberate labor. As companies continue to increase investment, this battle for talent and technology will promote the rapid development of the entire AI industry, but also portend profound changes in the industry landscape.
