Amazon has announced a new research and development laboratory in San Francisco that focuses on developing AI agents.
The Amazon AGI SF Lab will be led by David Luan, co-founder of AI startup Adept, and will work closely with robotics researcher Pieter Abbeel, who joined Amazon after its "license and hire" deal with Covariant.
The lab aims to create agents that can perform actions in both digital and physical environments, handle complex workflows, and learn from human feedback. Initially, the lab will be staffed by Adept employees who joined Amazon through a similar arrangement. Adept was among the first startups to develop generative AI-based agents, having introduced its ACT-1 model in early 2022. The lab's work will build on results from Amazon's broader AGI team, which recently introduced the new Nova models.
From business tools to smart assistants
Amazon has already gained experience with AI agents through its Bedrock and Amazon Q Business platforms. The company sees significant potential in this sector and wants to take a leading position.
Amazon's Alexa is also set to incorporate more "agent-like" AI capabilities: CEO Andy Jassy has hinted at a version of Alexa that can not only answer questions but also take actions. However, according to insiders, hardware and reliability issues are causing delays in the new Alexa rollout.
Amazon isn't alone in this field. Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI are also developing AI agents. Anthropic has already released an early project called "Computer Use," where Claude 3.5 Sonnet can control a computer.
