Boston Dynamics names former Amazon Alexa and AGI chief Rohit Prasad CEO

What happened

On Oct 6, 2026 Boston Dynamics named Rohit Prasad chief executive, effective the next day. It said his appointment "accelerates Boston Dynamics' Physical AI strategy by combining world-class robotics with advanced AI capabilities to commercialize intelligent machines at scale". Prasad spent 12 years at Amazon. He helped build Alexa from its earliest days into a consumer AI service "used in hundreds of millions of households" and later led the Amazon Nova foundation models as SVP and Head Scientist for Alexa and AGI. Before Amazon he spent nearly 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies. The release stresses that he has been based in the Boston area for over 25 years.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced Prasad's departure on Dec 17, 2025, effective at the end of that year. It was part of a reorganization that put the AGI unit, custom chips and quantum computing under AWS's Peter DeSantis (Fortune). In July 2026 Amazon reportedly moved most Nova models to maintenance mode (see the related entry).

The CEO seat had been filled by an interim for months. Robert Playter, at Boston Dynamics since 1994 and CEO since fall 2019, announced on Feb 10, 2026 that he was stepping down; the company said he planned to retire. His last day was Feb 27. CFO Amanda McMaster ran the company as interim CEO while the board searched. Prasad is the company's third CEO, after founder Marc Raibert and Playter (The Robot Report).

Jaehoon Chang, Hyundai Motor Group vice chair and Boston Dynamics board chair, cited "Rohit's proven ability to turn AI into products at global scale" together with Hyundai's manufacturing, logistics and mobility capabilities. The Robot Report lists the company's recent news:

• the Robotics Metaplant Application Center opened at Hyundai's Georgia plant in September;
• a new four-fingered Atlas hand, designed for sim-to-real reinforcement learning;
• Spot 5.2, with agentic workflows;
• Orbit AIVI inspections, now powered by Google Gemini;
• a planned $100 million expansion of its Waltham, Mass. facilities.

Bloomberg's report was paywalled and was not read; the facts above come from the official release, The Robot Report, Reuters and Fortune.

Why it matters

The best-known legged-robotics company chose a leader from conversational AI and foundation models rather than from robotics hardware. It did so just as Atlas moves from demos to mass production for Hyundai: a planned 30,000-robot-a-year factory and factory deployments from 2028. Boston Dynamics presents the hire as part of its "Physical AI" strategy: combining robotics with advanced AI to commercialize intelligent machines at scale.

Changelog

• 2026-10-07: created from the Boston Dynamics release, The Robot Report, Reuters and Fortune (Bloomberg and Business Wire pages blocked our fetcher; Business Wire carries the same release).