Boston Dynamics names former Amazon Alexa leader Rohit Prasad as CEO

Boston Dynamics has a new boss, and he comes from the company that taught millions of people to talk to a speaker on their kitchen counter.

The robotics firm announced on October 6, 2026 that Rohit Prasad will take over as Chief Executive Officer, with the appointment effective October 7, 2026. Prasad is best known for leading the development of Alexa at Amazon. His mandate is to drive the company’s innovation and commercialization efforts.

The timing matters. Boston Dynamics is trying to turn some of the most recognizable robots on the planet into products that factories and warehouses actually buy at scale.

Who is Rohit Prasad

Prasad spent over 12 years leading Alexa development at Amazon. He also played a significant role in creating the Amazon Nova foundation model family.

Foundation models are the large AI systems that sit underneath chatbots, assistants and other software. They are trained on huge amounts of data and then adapted for specific jobs.

Before Amazon, Prasad spent nearly 14 years working on machine learning at Raytheon BBN Technologies.

That background is the point. Boston Dynamics has long been famous for hardware: robots that walk, balance, climb and recover from shoves. The next phase, by the company’s own framing, is about what it calls “Physical AI.”

The concept combines advanced artificial intelligence with robotic machines.

Prasad is also expected to join the Boston Dynamics board, pending approval.

A leadership gap, now filled

Robert Playter left the role in February 2026. Amanda McMaster stepped in as interim CEO after Playter’s departure.

Boston Dynamics has been a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group since the automaker acquired it in 2021. Hyundai became the majority owner through that deal.

The product lineup Prasad inherits

Boston Dynamics sells and develops three main robot families.

Spot is the four-legged quadruped robot. Stretch is the company’s logistics system, designed for moving boxes and handling warehouse work. Atlas is the humanoid robot, the two-legged machine that has become the face of the company.

The company focuses on pairing its hardware with AI to build applications that can scale across industries. Logistics and manufacturing sit at the top of that list.

Hyundai plans to begin deploying Atlas units in 2028 at its facility in Georgia. Plans call for manufacturing up to 30,000 humanoids annually.

What this means

Prasad’s Alexa years are relevant here in a specific way. Building a voice assistant meant turning cutting-edge AI research into a consumer product used at massive scale. That transition, from impressive research to dependable product, is exactly the gap Boston Dynamics needs to close.

His work on Amazon Nova points in the same direction. The broader AI industry has spent the last few years building foundation models for text and images. Applying similar approaches to robots that operate in the physical world is a natural next frontier, and Boston Dynamics clearly wants a leader who has built those systems before.

For Hyundai, the appointment is about protecting a long-term bet. The automaker has a built-in use case for Atlas in its own Georgia facility. If the humanoids work as planned, Hyundai gets productivity gains in its own plants and a showcase for selling robots to other manufacturers.

Watch for how quickly Boston Dynamics rolls out AI-driven upgrades to Spot and Stretch, which are already in commercial use. Watch for progress updates on Atlas ahead of the planned 2028 deployment in Georgia.

And watch whether the board approval for Prasad’s seat goes through as expected. A CEO with a board seat typically has more room to set strategy, which matters for a company trying to pivot from engineering marvel to industrial supplier.