Amazon Web Services just lost one of its key AI leaders. Vasi Philomin, the vice president who played a major role in developing Amazon’s generative AI strategy and products like Bedrock, has officially left the company.
In an email to Reuters, Philomin confirmed his departure and shared that he’s moving on to another company, though he didn’t say where. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the exit and said Philomin had been with Amazon for eight years before leaving in early June.
Also Read, Jump Pack Devastators and Hulks Hit Helldivers 2 in Major Order Update
Philomin was deeply involved in building out Amazon Bedrock, a key AWS service that allows customers to access and build on top of multiple AI foundation models—including Amazon’s own Titan models. He also frequently represented AWS at major events like the annual re:Invent cloud conference in Las Vegas.
With Philomin gone, Rajesh Sheth, a VP who previously led Amazon Elastic Block Store, has taken over some of his responsibilities, according to the company.
Amazon’s push into generative AI comes as the field becomes increasingly competitive, with companies like OpenAI and Google dominating the consumer AI space. To catch up, Amazon has made serious moves—most notably its $8 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic, integrating its Claude models into AWS products and even rebuilding Alexa to be more conversational using generative AI.
In December, Amazon rolled out Nova, its homegrown suite of AI models for text, image, and video generation. It followed that up this year with Sonic, a model designed to generate natural-sounding speech, targeting more realistic AI voice assistants.
The departure of a high-level exec like Philomin highlights just how fierce the talent war in AI has become. Companies are using creative tactics to lure top minds—one Reuters report mentioned the use of sports-style data analysis to identify high-potential AI engineers. Salaries for AI roles are also soaring as competition intensifies.
Despite its growth in the AI space, Amazon acknowledges that this tech shift could come at a cost to its workforce. In a recent internal memo, CEO Andy Jassy warned that agentic AI—AI that can take action with little or no human prompting—could lead to fewer traditional corporate roles.
“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” Jassy said. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs.”
With Philomin’s departure and the AI arms race showing no signs of slowing down, all eyes are on who will lead AWS’s next chapter in the rapidly evolving generative AI landscape.
Also Read, YouTube Increases Minimum Age for Livestreaming to 16 Starting July 2025