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David Luan, who led Amazon’s San Francisco AGI Lab and helped create its Nova Act browser-agent technology, announced on February 24, 2026, that he would leave Amazon at the end of that week. The lab’s later status is separate from his departure: in July 2026, Amazon confirmed that the San Francisco site was closing, while Nova Act remained available on AWS and in customer use, according to GeekWire.
Who left Amazon’s AI lab?
David Luan announced his departure in February 2026. He had led Amazon’s San Francisco-based AGI Lab, the group behind Nova Act, a model and developer toolkit for building AI agents that carry out tasks in web browsers. GeekWire reported on February 24 that Luan planned to leave at the end of that week. GeekWire’s report on Luan’s departure quoted his post: “I’ll be leaving Amazon at the end of this week to cook up something new.”
Luan was a prominent AI executive before joining Amazon. He co-founded Adept in 2022 and led its research and engineering; earlier, he held research and engineering leadership roles at OpenAI and led Google’s large language model effort. Amazon hired Luan and other Adept leaders in 2024 and licensed Adept technology and models. Adept continued operating independently with its remaining employees. GeekWire reported that four of the five Adept co-founders who joined Amazon had left by February 2026, based on a review of LinkedIn profiles.
Why did David Luan leave Amazon?
Luan said he wanted to focus on developing new capabilities for AI systems. In the statement quoted by GeekWire, he wrote: “There’s incredible work to be done at Amazon and opportunities for me to take on more areas. But with AGI so close, I decided to spend 100% of my time on teaching AI systems brand new capabilities.” That is Luan’s explanation of his decision; Amazon did not provide a separate explanation beyond responding to his post.
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The available reporting does not establish a deeper personal or organizational reason for his departure. His remarks about AGI’s proximity are his view, not evidence that artificial general intelligence is imminent or that a dispute prompted his exit. Ahead of Nova Act’s launch, Luan told GeekWire, “We really think agents are the last missing piece on the path to general intelligence.” That, too, was his perspective on the technology.
What is Nova Act?
Amazon’s AGI Lab was established in December 2024 as a small, focused research group. Its first major release, Nova Act, was announced in March 2025. GeekWire described it as both an AI model and a developer toolkit for building agents that can perform tasks autonomously in web browsers.
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Luan’s departure post said Nova Act had been adopted by Hertz, 1Password and Amazon.com. GeekWire also reported that the post said Nova Act reached the top of the REALBench agent research leaderboard, and that the model became generally available as an AWS service at re:Invent in December. Those customer and leaderboard statements are attributed to the post and reporting; they are not an independent audit of Nova Act’s performance.
Who leads Amazon’s AI organization now?
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that Peter DeSantis would lead a broad organization covering Nova models and the AGI team, silicon development, and quantum computing. Jassy separately said that Pieter Abbeel would lead the frontier model research team within AGI. The announcement describes the leadership remits at that point; it does not establish every reporting line or the later operating status of each team.
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In July 2026, GeekWire reported that Amazon’s frontier model research would continue under Abbeel even as the San Francisco AGI site closed. The report also said Amazon confirmed an unspecified number of job cuts across the broader AGI organization. The site closure therefore should not be read as evidence that all frontier research stopped.
Is Nova Act still available?
As of GeekWire’s July 24, 2026 report, Nova Act remained available on AWS and in customer use despite the confirmed closure of the San Francisco AGI site. The product’s reported availability and the status of the lab that developed it are distinct: the closure does not, by itself, mean Nova Act was discontinued.
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