Amazon has pulled the plug on most of its internally developed Nova AI models, signaling a dramatic shift in strategy that sidelines text, image, and video generation systems once hailed as the company’s flagship artificial intelligence offerings.
The move arrives just months after layoffs struck Amazon’s Artificial General Intelligence division and the quiet dissolution of AGI Lab, a research unit created in 2024 following the high-profile hiring of AI startup Adept’s core team. Internal sources describe the deprioritized models as operating in “KTLO” mode: keep the lights on. These systems will continue serving existing customers but no longer receive major development resources.
Among the models winding down are the top-tier Nova Premier and Omni, the Reel video-generation tool, and the Canvas image-generation product. Engineering talent and scarce computing power have instead funneled into a new priority called Frontier Model Research, or FMR.
Researcher Pieter Abbeel, who joined Amazon through its acquisition of robotics startup Covariant, leads the FMR initiative. The team aims to deliver a new flagship foundation model, possibly debuting under the Nova brand, at Amazon’s annual re:Invent conference this fall.
A company spokesperson pushed back against any suggestion of retreat, stating that Amazon remains deeply committed to frontier AI models and routinely evolves its lineup based on customer demand. The representative emphasized long-term support for production models and promised clear migration paths as technology advances.
The restructuring traces back further than the latest cuts. Amazon formed its AGI organization in 2023 with a sweeping mandate to build foundational AI systems. Former Alexa executive Rohit Prasad ran the group until his departure in December 2025. That same month, senior vice president Peter DeSantis absorbed the AGI unit, merging it with Amazon’s silicon and quantum computing divisions.
Employees report that DeSantis has pursued a tighter focus than his predecessor. Where Prasad backed multiple model families spanning diverse formats, DeSantis concentrated resources on fewer, larger frontier efforts. Staff across the organization describe receiving minimal long-term guidance on the Nova portfolio, creating widespread uncertainty.
The layoffs caught many researchers off guard. Frontier model specialists had long ranked among Amazon’s most valued technical hires, operating under separate compensation and leveling structures designed to compete aggressively for AI talent. The reorganization also saw AGI Lab shut down completely. David Luan, the Adept cofounder who led that unit, departed Amazon in February.
The about-face carries symbolic weight. At last year’s re:Invent conference, AWS unveiled Nova Omni 2 as its premier multimodal reasoning system. Two years earlier, CEO Andy Jassy personally championed the AGI team as the group that would construct Amazon’s most ambitious models, spawning six new research groups in the process. Now, less than three years later, much of that portfolio sits in maintenance mode while the company bets its future on a single concentrated moonshot.
