Boston Dynamics, the company famous for backflipping Atlas robots, has picked a speech and AI scientist to run it. Rohit Prasad, who helped build Amazon's Alexa, became CEO on October 7, and he says the company is "uniquely positioned to advance Physical AI," the push to give robots the smarts to do useful work in the real world. Our read: the hire puts more weight on the software that makes a robot useful than on the legs that make it look good on video.
Prasad spent 12 years at Amazon (AMZN). He finished there as senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence, and he led work on Amazon's Nova family of AI models. Before that he spent almost 14 years running machine learning research at Raytheon BBN Technologies. He's also expected to join the board, pending approval.
A company built by engineers bets on a scientist
He's only the third CEO in the company's 34 years. Founder Marc Raibert ran it from 1992 to 2020, then Robert Playter took over until he left in February. Since then CFO Amanda McMaster has been interim CEO. Board chair Jaehoon Chang, who is also a vice chair of Hyundai Motor Group, pointed to Prasad's "proven ability to turn AI into products at global scale".
That line deserves a bit of skepticism. Prasad's exit from Amazon was announced in December 2025, during a reshuffle of its AI leadership. At the time Fortune noted that Amazon's long-delayed AI rebuild of Alexa had struggled, and that analysts saw AWS trailing rivals in AI. Alexa really did spread widely, and Amazon says there are more than 600 million Alexa devices out there, but the generative AI chapter of his career is less clear-cut.
The clock is Hyundai's
Hyundai has owned most of Boston Dynamics since 2021. It wants electric Atlas humanoids working in its Georgia factories by 2028, and it has talked about building capacity for up to 30,000 humanoids a year. Those are plans, not deliveries. Atlas is still described as a platform in development, while the robots actually making money today are Spot, the four-legged inspection robot, and Stretch, which unloads boxes in warehouses.
Prasad isn't starting from zero on AI. Since October 2024 Boston Dynamics has worked with Toyota Research Institute on large behavior models, AI systems trained to control a robot's whole body, and in August 2025 the pair showed a single model running Atlas through packing and sorting tasks. Boston Dynamics already had some of the best-known robot bodies in the business. Hiring Prasad signals it wants AI software to carry more of the load.
The first real test will come when Atlas starts doing paid work in Georgia, which Hyundai is aiming for by 2028.
Sources
- 1.Boston Dynamics Appoints Rohit Prasad as Chief Executive Officer · Boston Dynamics
- 2.Boston Dynamics appoints former Amazon exec Rohit Prasad as new CEO · The Robot Report
- 3.Boston Dynamics names former Amazon executive Rohit Prasad as CEO · Investing.com via Yahoo Finance
- 4.Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announces departure of AI exec Rohit Prasad in leadership shakeup · Fortune
- 5.Introducing Alexa+: skills, cost, and availability · Amazon
- 6.AI-Powered Robot by Boston Dynamics and Toyota Research Institute Takes a Key Step Towards General-Purpose Humanoids · Toyota USA Newsroom
Reported by the WattsUpNext desk from the sources linked below. Spot an error? Tell us at corrections@wattsupnext.com.
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