Amazon AGI lab head David Luan departs
David Luan, who led Amazon's Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) lab in San Francisco, is leaving about two years after joining through an acqui-hire in which Amazon hired Adept leaders and licensed Adept's agent technology while Adept continued operating independently.
During his time at Amazon, he helped launch Nova Act—a tool for automating web tasks and a direct challenger to ChatGPT and Claude.
Luan's background
Luan co-founded Adept in 2022 and steered it until an acqui-hire in June 2024 in which Amazon hired Adept leaders and licensed Adept's agent technology while Adept continued operating independently.
Before that, he was Director at Google Research and VP of Engineering at OpenAI, where he worked on early GPT models.
He's also a Yale grad with degrees in Applied Math and Political Science.
Amazon is shifting its AGI division into AWS
Luan's exit comes as Amazon shifts its AGI division into its cloud business under AWS exec Peter DeSantis.
This shakeup happens while regulators are keeping a close eye on big tech AI deals.
For anyone watching the future of AI or curious about how tech giants handle innovation (and regulation), this is one to keep an eye on.