Report: Amazon loses one of its top AI bosses
Amazon has lost one of its top AI bosses in a major blow to Jeff Bezos. Vasi Philomi - who until recently helped to oversee generative artificial intelligence development at Amazon Web Services - has left after eight years, Reuters reported.
Philomin helped lead generative AI efforts and product strategy, and oversaw foundation models known as Amazon Titan. Rajesh Sheth, a vice president previously overseeing Amazon Elastic Block Store, had assumed some of Philomin's responsibilities, Amazon told Reuters.
In his biography, Philomin said he helped create and lead Amazon Bedrock, a hub for using multiple AI models and one of AWS's premier products in its battle for AI supremacy.
Amazon is working to bolster its reputation in AI development, after rivals like OpenAI, and Google have taken an early lead, particularly with consumer-focused models. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman complained that Zuckerberg was attempting to poach his top talent with huge salaries as Meta also scrambles to catch up.
Amazon has invested $8 billion in AI startup Anthropic and integrated its Claude software into its own products including a new revamped version of voice assistant Alexa that it's rolling out to customers this year. In December, Amazon introduced its Nova AI models which provide for text, video and image generation.
Earlier this year, it added to the lineup with a version called Sonic that can more readily produce natural-sounding speech. Companies are employing creative techniques to hire top AI talent, including using sports industry data analysis to help identify undiscovered talent, Reuters reported last month.
However, as Amazon races to produce more advanced AI, it said it expects its own success will lead to fewer corporate jobs, according to a memo from CEO Andy Jassy last week. Job growth limits will be driven in particular by so-called Agentic AI, which can perform tasks with minimal or even no additional input from people.
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