Amazon hires execs from AI startup Adept and licenses its technology [Video]

Amazon is ramping up its development of artificial intelligence technology, hiring top talent from AI agent startup Adept and licensing the company’s technology.

Rohit Prasad, a senior vice president and head scientist who oversees Amazon’s artificial general intelligence unit, wrote in a memo to employees on Friday that the company hired Adept co-founder and CEO David Luan and “a few other deeply talented team members to our AGI team.”

Luan will oversee Amazon’s “AGI Autonomy” division, and report to Prasad, he wrote in the memo, which CNBC obtained. Amazon confirmed the contents of the memo. Geekwire was first to report on it.

Amazon faces fierce competition in AI, as rivals Microsoft and Googlerapidly add new features into their core products while also giving businesses more ways to access large language models in their public cloud offerings. …