Amazon is retiring most of its flagship Nova AI models as part of a dramatic strategic pivot toward a single frontier system. According to Business Insider, the company has begun winding down the high-end Premier and Omni systems, the Reel video tool and the Canvas image generator, with engineers describing these products as being in "KTLO" - keep the lights on mode. The shift represents a complete reversal from Amazon's previous strategy under Rohit Prasad, who oversaw the company's AGI efforts and built the Nova family to deliver presence across each category. The Nova Omni 2 was once positioned as AWS's flagship multimodal reasoning system at last year's re:Invent conference, but that breadth is now being dismantled under the new leadership approach.
Amazon has implemented job cuts within its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team as part of a strategic reorganization effort. According to Reuters reports, the company eliminated roles within parts of its AGI organization while focusing resources on initiatives with the greatest customer impact. The latest cuts affected employees working on model customization, post-training, data services and information - areas that were previously central to Amazon's AGI strategy. As per Reuters, employees under Adeeb Shanaa, vice president of AGI data services, and Vishal Sharma, vice president of AGI information, were also affected. Amazon confirmed the cuts to KIRO 7 on Thursday, stating the company is 'committed' to providing support for impacted employees through their transitions. Each US employee affected will receive 90 days of pay and benefits, alongside outplacement assistance, transitional healthcare support, and eligibility for a severance payment.
An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the company has been building large AI models for several years and considers it one of the most important initiatives. The restructuring aims to 'sharpen' focus on initiatives that matter most for customers so the company can move faster on priority projects. This strategic pivot comes as Amazon prepares to spend more than $200 billion in capital expenditure for 2026, representing a more than 50% increase from 2025 levels. As an Amazon spokesperson explained to KIRO 7, "This is a fast-moving space, and we're sharpening our focus on the initiatives that matter most for customers, so we can move faster on what counts. That focus means some difficult decisions, including eliminating some roles within parts of our AGI organisation, even as we continue to invest in the areas most important to our customers' future." The company is raising tens of billions of dollars in debt to support its infrastructure build-out, demonstrating unprecedented commitment to AI development.
The restructuring follows significant leadership changes within Amazon's AI business. Rohit Prasad, who oversaw the company's AGI efforts, left Amazon at the end of 2025, while David Luan, head of the AGI Lab, departed in February after joining through Amazon's acquisition of AI startup Adept. In December, Amazon consolidated its AGI operations under senior vice-president Peter DeSantis as part of a broader team that also oversees silicon development and quantum computing. According to Business Insider, Pieter Abbeel, who arrived at Amazon through its acquisition of robotics startup Covariant, now runs the Frontier Model Research (FMR) project as the organization's overriding priority. Under Abbeel's leadership, Amazon is building a new flagship foundation model expected to be unveiled at this year's re:Invent conference in the autumn. The company is retaining several Nova products in active use, including the Nova 2 Sonic and Nova 2 Lite foundation models, the Nova Forge platform, and the Nova Act agent technology.
The latest job cuts represent part of Amazon's ongoing workforce adjustments since a much larger round of layoffs earlier this year. According to Reuters, Amazon has eliminated roughly 30,000 roles since October, including approximately 16,000 jobs in January across departments such as AWS, retail, Prime Video and human resources. The cuts impacted 2,198 Seattle-area employees, including more than 1,400 based in Seattle and another 630 in Bellevue. Before that, Amazon cut approximately 14,000 corporate jobs in October 2025, close to 4% of its workforce, as the online retail giant ramped up spending on AI while trimming costs elsewhere. The contrast is clear: Amazon is cutting selected AI roles while directing unprecedented funding toward models, chips and computing infrastructure it believes can close the gap with AI market leaders. The restructuring aligns with industry trends, as firms including Microsoft, Google and Meta have also announced targeted job cuts in recent months while ramping up spending on AI infrastructure and advanced models.
