Amazon loses VP helping lead development of artificial general intelligence

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

By Greg Bensinger

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -An Amazon vice president helping to oversee one of the company’s highest profile projects, artificial general intelligence, is stepping down on Friday, the online retailer confirmed after a Reuters inquiry.

Karthik Ramakrishnan, a 13-year veteran of Amazon, is stepping down, according to internal communications reviewed by Reuters. It could not be learned if he had another job lined up and Ramakrishnan did not respond to a request for comment.

Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is technology being developed that researchers believe could one day equal or even outperform human-level intelligence. AGI, if perfected, could help to further automate work done today by humans, potentially upending fields as diverse as warfare, healthcare and stock trading.

Ramakrishnan worked on the first iteration of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant and the associated Echo devices. He began his career at Netscape before moving to Tellme Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft, according to his LinkedIn profile.

His departure is among several higher profile ones in recent months, including Vasi Philomin, a vice president guiding generative AI development; and Jon Jones, who led the AWS global startups and venture capital business. 

Amazon is working to bolster its reputation for developing AI software and services as rivals like OpenAI and Google have captured market share. It has invested around $8 billion in startup Anthropic and uses its Claude AI model in products like Alexa and an internal chatbot known as Cedric.

On Thursday at an internal all-hands meeting, AWS chief Matt Garman pressed employees to meet timelines for releasing products, saying Amazon can “lose some of that buzz” when customers have to wait to try out new services, Reuters reported.

(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by David Gregorio)