Top Scientist Departs Amazon’s AGI Lab Following Adept Startup Partnership

David Luan, who was heading Amazon’s San Francisco-based AGI Lab and overseeing a crucial agentic AI project, has decided to part ways with the tech company less than two years after joining through an acqui-hire arrangement involving him and other leaders from AI startup Adept.

Luan announced his departure in a LinkedIn post, stating that he will be leaving by the end of the week to explore new opportunities.

Although there were ample opportunities for him at Amazon, Luan expressed his desire to focus entirely on enhancing AI systems with novel capabilities, particularly with AGI on the horizon.

Following Luan’s exit, four out of the five Adept co-founders who joined Amazon in the high-profile 2024 deal have also left the company, according to LinkedIn profiles.

Peter DeSantis, a long-time Amazon executive, took over the AGI team, responsible for Amazon’s Nova Act AI agent technologies, after Luan’s departure. Luan expressed confidence that the team is in good hands with DeSantis.

While Adept co-founder Kelsey Szot and director Bryan Silverthorn remain at Amazon, others have moved on to different roles across the industry.

Amazon’s collaboration with Adept, one of several acqui-hire deals, has attracted attention from the Federal Trade Commission due to concerns about tech giants absorbing AI startups without proper scrutiny.

At Amazon, Luan served as the vice president of Autonomy and led the AGI Lab, which introduced Nova Act, an AI model and developer toolkit for autonomous task performance in web browsers.

In his farewell post, Luan highlighted the success of Nova Act, mentioning its adoption by prominent customers and its recognition in the REALBench agent research leaderboard.

Since leaving Amazon, other Adept co-founders have found new roles in the industry, contributing to various organizations.

Prior to his stint at Adept, Luan had significant experience in leading AI initiatives at OpenAI and Google, making strategic bets on emerging technologies.

Amazon’s continued investments in AI, including up to $8 billion in Anthropic, demonstrate its commitment to advancing technology in the cloud computing space.