Boston Dynamics Taps Amazon Veteran Rohit Prasad as CEO, Signaling a Hard Pivot to Physical AI

Boston Dynamics has ended its leadership search. The company named Rohit Prasad as its new CEO, nearly nine months after Robert Playter stepped down from the role. Chief Financial Officer Amanda McMaster, who served as interim CEO after Playter left in February, hands the reins to an executive whose career has been spent turning machine-learning research into shipping products.

A CEO Built for Commercialization

Prasad arrives from Amazon, where he served as senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence. Over 12 years at Amazon, he helped build Alexa from its earliest days into a large-scale consumer AI service now used in hundreds of millions of households worldwide. More recently, he led development of the Amazon Nova foundation model family used by enterprises. Before Amazon, Prasad spent nearly 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies, leading machine-learning research and its real-world application for government and commercial use.

That resume matters. Boston Dynamics said Prasad's appointment is expected to accelerate its physical AI strategy — combining robotics with advanced AI capabilities to commercialize intelligent machines at scale. Subject to the relevant approval process, Prasad is also expected to join the company's Board of Directors.

"Boston Dynamics is uniquely positioned to advance physical AI through its world-class robotics expertise. I am honored to join the company at such a pivotal moment for the industry. 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."

Prasad said he plans to productize intelligent robotic systems that improve safety, productivity, and operational efficiency across real-world industrial and commercial environments. For manufacturing professionals, that phrasing is the tell: this is a go-to-market hire, not a research hire.

Hyundai's Hand on the Wheel

The appointment also reflects the priorities of Boston Dynamics' majority owner. Hyundai Motor Group acquired a controlling stake in the company from SoftBank Group in 2021, and the parent company's leadership framed Prasad's hiring in explicitly industrial terms.

"Boston Dynamics' industry-leading robotics, Rohit's proven ability to turn AI into products at global scale, and Hyundai Motor Group's modern manufacturing, logistics, and mobility capabilities give us a powerful foundation to build and scale physical AI," said Jaehoon Chang, vice chair of Hyundai and chair of the board of directors at Boston Dynamics.

The Hardware Roadmap Is Already Moving

The new CEO inherits an active product pipeline. Boston Dynamics recently unveiled a new hand for the Atlas humanoid, designed for high-fidelity simulation to enable sim-to-real reinforcement learning. The company also opened its Robotics Metaplant Application Center (RMAC) at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia — a facility tied directly to integrating Atlas into automotive manufacturing operations.

On the quadruped side, Spot 5.2 is the latest update to the platform, enabling agentic workflows that reason across systems. The Stretch trailer-unloading robot rounds out the commercial lineup.

The company's policy voice will also be on the circuit: Boston Dynamics will be represented on a reshoring-and-robotics panel at RoboBusiness 2026, taking place October 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, Calif.

The open question for engineers watching this space: whether Prasad's consumer-AI playbook — scaled deployment, foundation models, productization discipline — translates to the messier economics of industrial robotics. The next era of physical AI, as he puts it, now has an operator in charge.