Amazon Acquires Adept’s AI Tech and Talent to Boost Generative AI Efforts

 

Amazon Acquires Adept’s AI Tech and Talent to Boost Generative AI Efforts
Image credit: Adept LinkedIn 

Adept, a startup specializing in AI-powered agents for software tasks, has agreed to license its technology to Amazon. As part of this deal, Adept’s co-founders, including CEO David Luan, along with portions of the team, will join the e-commerce giant.

Geekwire’s Taylor Soper first reported the news, revealing that co-founders Augustus Odena, Maxwell Nye, Erich Elsen, Kelsey Szot, and other employees will also move to Amazon. However, Adept will continue operations with Zach Brock, head of engineering, stepping in as the new CEO. The company will refocus on developing “solutions that enable agentic AI,” using its existing AI models, data, and custom infrastructure.

This deal offers a crucial lifeline for Adept, which had been in acquisition talks with Meta and Microsoft. Microsoft had previously invested in the startup. For Amazon, the acquisition brings valuable talent and technology to support its generative AI ambitions. David Luan will work under Rohit Prasad, former Alexa head, who is now leading a new AGI team focused on building large language models.

Adept's Team
Image credit: Forbes 

Founded two years ago, Adept aimed to create an AI model capable of performing tasks on any software tool using natural language. This vision of an “AI teammate” attracted significant investment from Nvidia, Atlassian, Workday, and Greylock, raising over $415 million and reaching a valuation of around $1 billion. Despite this, the startup faced challenges, losing two co-founders early on and struggling to bring a product to market.

The market for AI agents has become increasingly competitive, with startups like Orby and Emergence vying for dominance. According to Grand View Research, the AI agents segment was worth $4.2 billion in 2022. Adept’s collaboration with Amazon could provide the boost it needs to succeed, though there is also the risk of Adept facing the same fate as Inflection, an AI startup that lost much of its talent to Microsoft. Regulatory scrutiny of such AI acquisitions may also impact the outcome.

Prasad emphasized that the expertise of David Luan and his team in training multimodal foundational models and building digital agents aligns with Amazon’s goal to deliver practical AI solutions to both consumers and enterprises. The license agreement will expedite Amazon’s development of digital agents to automate software workflows.