Amazon has launched a new research and development lab in San Francisco aimed at establishing "foundational" abilities for AI agents. This initiative will be headed by David Luan, who co-founded the AI startup Adept and previously served as its CEO.
Leadership Background
David Luan has an impressive background, having worked as the vice president of Engineering at OpenAI and spent a year in a leadership role at Google Research. He started Adept in 2022 and then transitioned to Amazon, where he now leads the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) lab in San Francisco.
Strategic Hiring
In June, Amazon brought Luan on board along with his co-founders Augustus Odena, Maxwell Nye, Erich Elsen, and Kelsey Szot. This move was part of a larger agreement that allows Amazon to use certain technology licenses from Adept. The startup had recently secured $350 million in a Series B funding round in March 2023, reaching a valuation of $1 billion.
The AGI SF team is set to collaborate closely with Amazon's extensive research group to develop AI agents capable of "taking actions in both digital and physical environments." Their primary goal is to create AI agents that can "carry out real-world tasks, learn from feedback provided by humans, self-correct, and understand our objectives."
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