Adept, a startup developing AI-based “agents” to complete a variety of software-based tasks, has agreed to license its technology to Amazon, as the startup's co-founder and part of his team join the e-commerce giant.
The news was first reported by Taylor Soper of Geekwire. According to Soper, Adept co-founder and CEO David Luan will be joining Amazon, along with Adept co-founders Augustus Odena, Maxwell Nye, Erich Elsen, Kelsey Szot, and other Adept employees.
But Adept is not closing. Zach Brock, head of engineering, takes over as CEO as Adept focuses its efforts on “solutions that enable agent AI.”
“(Our product) will continue to be powered by a combination of existing state-of-the-art in-house (AI) models, agent data, web interaction software, and custom infrastructure,” Adept wrote in an official blog post. “Continuing with Adept’s initial plan to build both useful general information and enterprise agent products required significant attention to fundraising for the foundational model rather than realizing the agent vision.”
The deal is said to provide a lifeline to Adept, which has reportedly been in talks with Meta and Microsoft for a potential acquisition over the past few months. Microsoft has previously invested in the startup.
For Amazon, it gains valuable talent and technology that will power its generative AI ambitions. According to Geekwire, Luan will work under former Alexa head Rohit Prasad, who will lead the new AGI team focused on building large-scale language models.
“David and his team’s expertise in training cutting-edge multimodal-based models and building real-world digital agents is aligned with our vision to delight consumer and enterprise customers with practical AI solutions,” Prasad said in a note to employees. “I wrote. Geekwire. “(The license) will accelerate our roadmap for building digital agents that can automate software workflows.”
Adept was founded two years ago with the goal of building AI models that can perform tasks in any software tool using natural language. At a high level, the vision (now shared by OpenAI, Rabbit, and others) was to create a kind of “AI teammate” trained to use a variety of software tools and APIs.
Through its technology, Adept has secured backers including Nvidia, Atlassian, Workday, and Greylock, raising more than $415 million in capital and reaching a valuation of about $1 billion. But the startup suffered from dysfunction. Adept lost two of its co-founders, Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar, early on. And despite nearly a year of testing, they had trouble getting the product to market.
The AI agent market is a bit more crowded than it was when Adept launched. Well-funded startups like Orby, Emergence, and others are competing for a piece of what promises to be a lucrative pie. Market research firm Grand View Research estimates that the AI agent segment will be worth $4.2 billion by 2022.
But perhaps Amazon's partnership will get it across the finish line. Or, if a significant portion of the executive team leaves, Adept will likely follow the same fate as Inflection, the AI startup that was effectively destroyed talent-wise by Microsoft earlier this year. Or perhaps regulators, who are increasingly skeptical of these types of AI employers, will step in (if they aren't rendered toothless by Friday's Supreme Court ruling). Grab some popcorn and take a seat.
