Boston Dynamics Hands Its Robots a CEO From the AI World
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Boston Dynamics, the company best known for robots that walk, climb and occasionally go viral, has a new chief executive. It announced on October 6, 2026, that Rohit Prasad would take over as CEO the next day, October 7. He is also expected to join the board of directors, subject to the usual approval process.
From talking assistants to walking machines
Prasad's résumé reads like a tour of applied artificial intelligence. Most recently he was senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence at Amazon. Over 12 years there he helped build Alexa into a consumer AI service used in hundreds of millions of households, and later led development of the Amazon Nova family of foundation models for enterprise use. Before Amazon he spent nearly 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies, leading machine learning research for government and commercial customers. He has lived in the Boston area for more than 25 years, so the commute to his new robots should at least be familiar.
Prasad said Boston Dynamics is uniquely positioned to advance Physical AI thanks to its robotics expertise. Jaehoon Chang, vice chair of Hyundai Motor Group and chair of the Boston Dynamics board, said the company was thrilled to have him lead what he called a new era of real-world Physical AI.
What the hire signals
The choice says a lot about where the board sees the company going. Boston Dynamics now describes its mission in terms of intelligent robotic systems for industrial, enterprise and other real-world settings. Its line-up includes Spot, a four-legged inspection robot; Stretch, which moves boxes in warehouses and stores; and Atlas, an electric humanoid still in development. Picking a leader whose career has been about making software understand people suggests the next chapter is less about how robots move and more about how well they think. The announcement did not name the previous CEO or explain the transition.