Boston Dynamics appointed Rohit Prasad, formerly Amazon's Senior Vice President and Head Scientist for Alexa and Artificial General Intelligence, as Chief Executive Officer, effective October 7, 202616. Prasad succeeds Chief Financial Officer Amanda McMaster, who served as interim CEO after Robert Playter left the post in February17. Boston Dynamics had been without a permanent leader for seven months7. Prasad is the company's third CEO ever.
Prasad is also expected to join Boston Dynamics' Board of Directors, subject to the relevant approval process.
Prasad's AI track record
Prasad joined Amazon in 2013 as an early core member of a secret project personally backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, leading the development of Alexa's AI strategy and technology3. During 12 years at Amazon, he built Alexa from its earliest days into a large-scale consumer AI service used in roughly 100 million households and on more than 500 million devices worldwide. He later led development of the Amazon Nova foundation model family for enterprise use19,20. Before Amazon, Prasad spent nearly 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies of Cambridge, working on machine-learning and speech-recognition systems for U.S. government and commercial use21,22. Boston Dynamics said Prasad has been based in the Boston area for over 25 years.
Hyundai Motor Chairman Jaehoon Chang said Boston Dynamics' robotics, Prasad's ability to turn AI into products at global scale, and Hyundai Motor's manufacturing, logistics, and mobility capabilities give the company a foundation to build and scale Physical AI.
"Boston Dynamics is uniquely positioned to advance physical AI through its world-class robotics expertise," Prasad stated. "By bringing together advanced AI and robotics, we can build intelligent systems that create meaningful value in real-world environments, expand the reach of robotics across industries, and shape the next era of physical AI".
Physical AI commercialization push
Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai Motor, said Prasad's appointment accelerates its Physical AI strategy by combining world-class robotics with advanced AI capabilities to commercialize intelligent machines at scale. The company is developing intelligent robotic systems for industrial, enterprise, and other real-world environments, and said Physical AI will unlock a new level of autonomy, adaptability, and productivity across a wide range of applications.
Boston Dynamics plans to combine Prasad's AI expertise and commercialization experience with its own robotics technology and Hyundai Motor's manufacturing and logistics operations. The company aims to test advanced AI and robotics technologies across Hyundai Motor's industrial base, including manufacturing, logistics, and mobility. Hyundai Motor aims to deploy the humanoid robot ATLAS at its Georgia manufacturing facility by 2028, with a long-term goal of producing up to 30,000 units annually. Of those, 25,000 would be put to work in Hyundai Motor and Kia automotive factories, while 5,000 would be retail products23. Expert estimates reported by the Korea Herald put current ATLAS unit costs at $130,000 to $140,000, falling to roughly $30,000 once 50,000 units have been produced.
Boston Dynamics is also rolling out commercial versions of ATLAS to compete against humanoid machines made in China. The company has gained a foothold in logistics robots with its Stretch systems for unloading trucks, while its Spot robot is used for industrial inspection, security patrols, and search-and-rescue missions.
ANALYSIS The hire places an executive with deep large-model and consumer-product experience at the helm of a company known primarily for advanced locomotion hardware, aligning its leadership with its stated push to productize intelligent robotic systems at industrial scale.