Rohit Prasad, the Indian-origin artificial intelligence executive who played a central role in building Amazon’s Alexa and leading its recent generative AI initiatives, is set to leave the company after a 12-year tenure. Amazon chief executive officer Andy Jassy announced on December 18 that Prasad will exit the company by the end of the year, marking a significant leadership transition within Amazon’s AI organisation.
Prasad joined Amazon in 2013, at a time when Alexa was still an early stage concept within the company. Over the following decade, he became one of the most influential figures in shaping Amazon’s voice assistant and broader AI strategy. Alexa evolved from an experimental project into a widely adopted service used by hundreds of millions of customers worldwide across Echo devices, third-party hardware and software integrations.
During his early years at Amazon, Prasad focused on building the technical foundations of Alexa, including speech recognition, natural language understanding and conversational AI systems. His work contributed to Alexa’s expansion across multiple languages, regions and use cases, positioning it as a key pillar of Amazon’s consumer ecosystem.
In more recent years, Prasad took on a broader leadership role as Amazon intensified its focus on generative AI. Over the past two years, he led the creation of Amazon Nova and the company’s Artificial Generative Intelligence unit. This group was tasked with developing large-scale foundation models and AI capabilities that could be applied across Amazon’s consumer products, enterprise offerings and cloud services.
Under Prasad’s leadership, Amazon developed 12 foundation AI models that are now used by tens of thousands of companies through Amazon Web Services. These models support a range of applications including content generation, summarisation, coding assistance and enterprise automation. The effort represented a major shift for Amazon as it sought to compete more directly in the rapidly evolving generative AI landscape.
Andy Jassy, in announcing Prasad’s departure, described him as “missionary, passionate, and selfless,” and credited him with building strong teams and differentiated AI technology. Jassy noted that Prasad’s work helped Amazon reach what he described as an inflection point in its AI journey, where foundational capabilities are now in place for broader scale and integration.
The announcement comes at a time when Amazon, like other major technology companies, is reassessing its leadership structure to align with long-term AI priorities. Generative AI has become a central focus for the company, influencing product development, cloud services and internal operations. Leadership changes at this stage suggest a transition from foundational build-out to operational scaling and commercial deployment.
Prasad’s departure also highlights the intense pressure faced by senior AI leaders as companies race to advance capabilities while navigating regulatory scrutiny, cost considerations and evolving customer expectations. Over the past year, Amazon has made significant investments in AI infrastructure and talent, while also streamlining certain initiatives to improve efficiency.
A native of Ranchi, Jharkhand, Prasad’s career trajectory reflects the growing global influence of Indian-origin technology leaders. He earned his undergraduate degree from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, before completing a master’s degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Amazon, he held roles in research and engineering that focused on speech and language technologies.
Industry observers note that Prasad’s exit may prompt questions about the future direction of Amazon’s AI efforts, particularly around Alexa and generative AI integration. While Alexa remains a widely used product, the voice assistant market has faced challenges related to monetisation and evolving user behaviour. At the same time, generative AI is opening new possibilities for conversational interfaces, enterprise tools and developer platforms.
Amazon has indicated that its AI strategy remains firmly on track, with leadership teams in place to continue advancing both consumer and enterprise initiatives. The company has been positioning its AI offerings as flexible and developer-friendly, particularly through AWS, where customers can build and deploy AI applications using Amazon’s foundation models alongside third-party tools.
Prasad’s leadership was widely seen as instrumental in bridging consumer AI products and enterprise-grade generative AI infrastructure. His ability to operate across these domains helped Amazon align its long-term research ambitions with practical deployment at scale. As the company moves into its next phase, maintaining that balance will be a key challenge for incoming leaders.
The departure also reflects a broader pattern of leadership movement across the AI industry, where senior executives with deep technical expertise are increasingly sought after. Competition for experienced AI leaders has intensified as companies invest heavily in foundational models, safety frameworks and commercial applications.
For Amazon employees and partners, the transition marks the end of a chapter that began with Alexa’s launch and expanded into the generative AI era. Prasad’s contributions helped define Amazon’s approach to conversational AI and large-scale model development, leaving a lasting imprint on the company’s technology stack.
As Amazon continues to scale its AI ambitions, the focus is expected to shift toward execution, adoption and monetisation. How effectively the company builds on the foundation laid during Prasad’s tenure will be closely watched by industry peers, customers and investors alike.
Prasad has not publicly announced his next move. His departure concludes a significant phase in Amazon’s AI journey and underscores the evolving nature of leadership as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to global technology strategies.
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