Amazon’s R&D lab forms new agentic AI group

Amazon is creating an agentic AI team within its Lab126 hardware research-and-development unit.
The new group will help develop an agentic AI "framework" for use in its robotics operations, an application often referred to as "physical AI."

Amazon has formed a new group within its consumer product-development arm that is focused on agentic artificial intelligence, the company said Wednesday.

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The team will be based in Lab126, the stealthy Silicon Valley-based research and development unit behind the Kindle e-reader, Echo smart speaker and other popular Amazon devices.

A growing number of companies are building AI agents as they look beyond text and image generators. In contrast to AI services such as chatbots, agents are capable of completing multistep, complex actions on a user's behalf.

The new group will help develop an agentic AI "framework" for use in its robotics operations, an application often referred to as "physical AI."

These systems enable robots to "hear, understand and act on natural language commands, turning warehouse robots into flexible, multi-talented assistants," Amazon said.

Amazon's AI lab released a web browser-based agent earlier this year. Its cloud unit has also formed its own agentic AI group. Amazon's Alexa+, an AI-infused update of its voice assistant released in March, is also expected to have some agentic capabilities.