Boston Dynamics appoints former Amazon exec Rohit Prasad as new CEO

therobotreport.com Oct 6, 2026

Boston Dynamics appoints former Amazon exec Rohit Prasad as new CEO

Curated by Shubham · TechCapsules · Oct 6, 2026

AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication

Boston Dynamics announced that former Amazon senior vice president Rohit Prasad will become its third CEO, succeeding interim leader Amanda McMaster. Prasad, who led Alexa’s AI development and Amazon’s enterprise foundation models, is expected to merge the company’s robotics expertise with advanced AI to commercialize intelligent machines at scale. The appointment follows a nine‑month vacancy after Robert Playter’s resignation and aims to accelerate the firm’s physical‑AI strategy across industrial and commercial sectors. Prasad will also join the board pending approvals.

💡 Why It Matters

· Prasad’s background in large‑scale AI productization positions Boston Dynamics to rapidly deploy robotics solutions that enhance safety and productivity, potentially reshaping automation in manufacturing and logistics.

Read full article on therobotreport.com

Deutsche Telekom boss’s ‘AI optimism’ isn’t shared

Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges showcased a staged AI‑generated video at the company’s AI investor day in Bonn, depicting himself in historic German moments and on a telecom mast. He used the clip to illustrate AI’s ability to replicate language, images and movement, calling himself an “AI optimist.” The presentation coincided with a KPMG survey indicating only one‑third of Germans trust AI‑generated information. Investors reacted skeptically to the operator’s AI strategy, and employee sentiment appears less enthusiastic than management’s. Höttges’ flamboyant display highlighted a growing gap between executive confidence in AI’s profit potential and broader public and workforce apprehension about the technology’s reliability and impact.

💡 The disconnect between leadership’s AI hype and stakeholder doubt could stall Deutsche Telekom’s rollout of AI‑driven services, jeopardizing its competitive edge in a rapidly digitising market.

techcrunch.com · Oct 6

Silicon Valley’s AI wunderkind launches Underdog, the most private Instinct/Muse competitor yet

Self‑taught coder Sigil Wen, a former Thiel Fellow who hacked alongside Andrej Karpathy, Aravind Srinivas and Noam Brown, launched Underdog on Monday. The assistant runs entirely on‑device on macOS and Windows PCs, with other platforms coming soon. Powered by Wen’s Husky inference engine, Underdog uses a 27‑billion‑parameter model fine‑tuned from Qwen‑3.8‑27B and matches benchmark results of Claude Opus 4.6. It encrypts account keys and keeps all user data local, removing cloud processing. Underdog will be free initially and will earn a tiny fee on payments it facilitates through Stripe, avoiding ads or data‑selling models. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Stripe co‑founder Patrick Collison and other angels, Conway Research pitches the product as a privacy‑first AI assistant for everyday personal use.

💡 By proving that a capable AI can run locally without monetizing user data, Underdog challenges the prevailing cloud‑centric business model and forces larger players to confront privacy as a competitive differentiator.

macworld.com · Oct 6

John Ternus is already doing it all

Apple’s newly appointed CEO John Ternus has completed just over a month in the role, prompting analysts to gauge his emerging leadership style. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Ternus is steering Apple toward a “more experimental” product cadence while maintaining a leaner workforce. A proposed plan to replace roughly 5,000 AppleCare support staff with AI‑driven agents was paused, and instead the company trimmed middle‑management positions. Ternus has also taken a hands‑on approach to design, regularly working in the Apple design studio—a contrast to Tim Cook’s limited visits. This dual focus on accelerated product releases and internal restructuring suggests Ternus may reshape Apple’s innovation pipeline and operational efficiency early in his tenure.

💡 Ternus’s hands‑on design involvement could accelerate Apple’s next wave of hardware, while the restrained AI rollout signals a cautious balance between cost cuts and customer service quality.

techtimes.com · Oct 6

Sam Altman Says Society Must Accept AI Hacks and Scams: Harm Is…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated in Politico’s Decoded newsletter that society must accept a baseline of AI‑enabled harm—fraud, scams, hacks—as the price of keeping the technology widely available. He clarified that OpenAI’s voluntary governance framework tolerates certain harms rather than eliminating them, arguing that lighter regulation allows users agency while the industry learns resilience. Altman contrasted this stance with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call for stricter pacing and independent oversight, highlighting a growing divide over AI safety governance.

💡 Altman’s admission signals a shift toward tolerating risk to accelerate deployment, reshaping how regulators and users weigh safety against innovation.

techtimes.com · Oct 6

Agility Robotics CEO Peggy Johnson Joins Project Meridian: $2.5B IPO Bets on…

Peggy Johnson, chief executive of Agility Robotics, has joined Project Meridian as an individual consultant to MITRE Corporation, the nonprofit leading the Department of War’s study on future military technologies. Johnson’s appointment follows Agility’s pending $2.5 billion SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, raising conflict‑of‑interest concerns similar to those already directed at Project Meridian’s co‑directors Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich. Project Meridian, announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, aims to produce a public report and classified annex by January 28, 2027, covering AI, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, and biotechnology for next‑decade warfare. The initiative is overseen by MITRE and supported by the Department of War’s Chief Technology Officer, Emil Michael.

💡 Johnson’s expertise in commercial humanoid robotics fills a critical gap in the study’s advisory panel, potentially steering U.S. defense procurement toward proven autonomous systems. Her involvement signals a shift toward integrating industry‑tested robotics into strategic planning, which could accelerate the adoption of advanced automation in military operations.

investinglive.com · Oct 6

Why a few words from Elon Musk can (and did!) move a…

Intel’s shares dropped more than 4% after Elon Musk tweeted that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is in “just discussions” to join Terafab, the $25 billion Texas chip venture backed by Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Musk added that any TSMC‑produced chips would likely supplement rather than replace Intel’s output. Intel is currently the sole named manufacturing partner for Terafab, slated to use its 14A process in a plant that aims to start at 100,000 wafers per month and eventually scale to one million. The project, valued at over $600 billion in market cap for Intel, hinges on securing external customers for its costly foundry push. A TSMC presence would turn Intel’s exclusive role into a shared one, raising questions about the future revenue mix of Intel’s foundry division. Watch for a formal TSMC agreement and Intel’s 14A design‑kit release later this month.

💡 Musk’s off‑hand confirmation instantly reshaped market perception of Intel’s ability to lock in marquee customers for its high‑cost fab expansion.