Rohit Prasad, the prominent figure behind Amazon's Alexa, is set to depart from the company at the end of the year. This move comes as Amazon reorganizes its artificial general intelligence (AGI) unit, integrating AI models, silicon development, and quantum computing under the leadership of veteran Peter DeSantis.
Prasad's journey with Amazon began in 2013, during Alexa's early stages. He was instrumental in transforming Alexa from an ambitious concept into a widely used service impacting millions of customers daily. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged Prasad's contributions, highlighting the strong team, differentiated technology, growing customer momentum, and a culture of ambitious invention that Prasad cultivated. Jassy described Prasad as "missionary, passionate, and selfless," expressing gratitude for his leadership and technical vision.
Born in India, Rohit Prasad received his early education in Ranchi, Jharkhand, and completed his engineering degree at the Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, in 1997. He then pursued a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. His research at Illinois Tech focused on low bit-rate speech coding for wireless applications, sparking his initial interest in speech recognition. In August 2020, Prasad was appointed to the Illinois Institute of Technology Board of Trustees.
Before joining Amazon, Prasad spent 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies, a research and development arm of the defense company Raytheon. There, he served as Deputy Manager and Senior Director for the Speech, Language, and Multimedia Business Unit, leading various government and commercially sponsored R&D projects in areas like speech-to-speech translation, psychological health analytics, and STEM learning.
During his tenure at Amazon, Prasad held the position of VP and Head Scientist of Alexa Artificial Intelligence. He spearheaded research and development in speech recognition, natural language understanding, and machine learning, all aimed at enhancing customer interactions with Amazon's products and services. His work focused on advancing generalizable AI and simplifying the process for developers to create skills for Alexa or integrate Alexa into their devices and apps. In mid-2023, Prasad was promoted to Senior Vice President and Head Scientist for Artificial General Intelligence at Amazon, leading a team to advance the company's generative AI technologies. This included Amazon's multimodal Large Language Models.
Prasad's work has garnered significant recognition. In 2017, he was ranked No. 15 on Recode's list of 100 people in tech, business, and media who mattered and was ranked No. 9 in Fast Company's 100 most creative people in business. TiE Boston awarded him the 2022 Achievement in Corporate Excellence award for his contributions to the industry through investment, mentoring, education, and business creativity. He has also co-authored over 100 scientific articles and holds numerous patents in voice and related technologies.
As Amazon moves forward with its reorganized AI strategy under Peter DeSantis, the legacy of Rohit Prasad's contributions to Alexa and Amazon's broader AI initiatives remains significant. His focus on practical AI applications and his leadership in building a strong team have positioned Amazon as a key player in the ongoing AI revolution.
