Boston Dynamics Names Rohit Prasad CEO

Boston Dynamics has spent decades proving what advanced robots can physically do. Its next challenge is turning that technical lead into repeatable commercial scale.

What happened

Boston Dynamics appointed Rohit Prasad as CEO, effective 7 October. Prasad previously held senior AI roles at Amazon, including leading work around Alexa and artificial general intelligence.

He succeeds Robert Playter and takes over as Boston Dynamics pushes products such as Atlas toward broader industrial deployment. Parent company Hyundai has also outlined plans for significant robot production capacity by 2028.

Why it matters

Boston Dynamics is already one of the most recognised names in robotics, but commercialisation requires a different set of capabilities from research. Robots need reliable software, repeatable manufacturing, clear customer workflows and economics that justify replacing or augmenting human labour.

Prasad brings experience in taking large-scale AI systems from research into products used by millions of customers. That background could be increasingly relevant as robotics becomes more dependent on foundation models, perception systems and agentic software.

The bigger picture

Physical AI is moving from impressive demonstrations toward deployment. Leadership changes at major robotics companies are therefore becoming strategically important: the winners may be determined not only by who builds the most capable robot, but by who can integrate AI, hardware, manufacturing and customer operations into a scalable product.