Amazon AGI lab shut down: what's confirmed about the July 2026 cuts, the San Francisco site closure and the Nova models

Did Amazon shut down its AGI lab? In part, and in July 2026, not October. Amazon confirmed in July 2026 that it was closing its San Francisco AGI site and cutting jobs in its artificial general intelligence organization, the group behind its Nova frontier models, and Business Insider reported that most flagship Nova models were being wound down. The story came back on October 27, 2026, when Futurism's July 29 article "Amazon Is Gutting Its AI Division After Sustained Failure" reached 304 points on Hacker News. Amazon hasn't shut down its AI model work: it says frontier model research continues, and AWS released a new Nova voice model on October 5. Amazon's biggest model bet sits outside the company, in Anthropic, whose S-1 lists Amazon agreements worth billions.

This story is based on Amazon's statements as reported by GeekWire and The Next Web, AWS's Bedrock documentation and October 5 announcement, and reporting by Futurism, eWeek and TheStreet, checked October 28 and 29, 2026.

The short version

• Confirmed by Amazon: job cuts in parts of its AGI organization (July 22, 2026), with no number given, and the closure of its San Francisco AGI site.
• Headcount: the San Francisco team peaked at about 80 people, according to The Information as cited by GeekWire. Amazon hasn't said how many jobs were cut overall.
• Nova: Nova Premier, Nova Omni, Nova Reel and Nova Canvas moved to "keep the lights on" status, according to Business Insider's July 28 report. AWS documentation confirms end-of-life dates for Nova Canvas, Nova Reel and the first Nova Sonic.
• Still running: Nova 2 Lite, Nova 2 Sonic, Nova Forge and Nova Act, per the same report, and Nova 2.5 Sonic, which AWS launched on October 5.
• What's new on October 27: nothing from Amazon. The Hacker News post was Futurism's July story.

What did Amazon confirm?

Two things, both in July. On Wednesday, July 22, 2026, Amazon confirmed it had laid off an unspecified number of employees in its AGI organization, after Reuters first reported the cuts, according to GeekWire. A spokesperson said building large AI models "remains one of the most important things we're working on," and that Amazon was "sharpening our focus on the initiatives that matter most for customers." The spokesperson added that the focus "means some difficult decisions, including eliminating some roles within parts of our AGI organization." GeekWire reported that US employees whose jobs were cut would get 90 days of pay and benefits, outplacement support and severance eligibility.

By July 24, The Information had reported that Amazon was closing its AGI SF Lab, according to The Next Web, and a spokesperson confirmed the closure to GeekWire. The lab was founded in December 2024 with several dozen employees from the startup Adept, including its chief executive, David Luan, GeekWire reported. Luan left in February 2026, and more than a dozen Adept hires had left before the closure. The browser-agent model and service the group built, Nova Act, remains available on AWS, GeekWire said.

Who runs Amazon's model work now?

Amazon told GeekWire that its frontier model research lab continues under Pieter Abbeel, the UC Berkeley professor who joined in 2024 when Amazon licensed technology from his robotics startup Covariant and hired its team. Rohit Prasad, who oversaw Amazon's AGI work, left at the end of 2025, and in December 2025 Amazon moved the AGI group into an organization led by senior vice president Peter DeSantis that also covers chips and quantum computing, GeekWire and TNW reported.

What happened to the Nova models?

The fullest account is a Business Insider report of July 28, as summarized by eWeek and TheStreet. Both summaries list the same split:

Last verified: October 29, 2026

The reports disagree on who broke the story: eWeek credits Business Insider, TheStreet attributes it to Reuters, and Futurism credits Bloomberg while linking to Business Insider. Amazon's response, as TheStreet quoted it from Reuters: "As with any AI portfolio, we continually evolve our model lineup based on what customers need," and "We're continuing to invest in and support the Nova models our customers rely on today."

AWS's own lifecycle page shows the first Nova Sonic reached end of life on September 14, 2026, and Nova Canvas and Nova Reel on September 30. Those models moved to legacy status on March 13 and March 30, 2026, months before the July reports. Nova 2 Lite, launched December 2, 2025, is listed as active. Nova Premier's model card, which on October 28 still showed it as legacy, no longer loaded on October 29: its address now redirects to the Bedrock user guide's front page, and Nova Premier appears in neither Bedrock's model-card index nor its legacy lifecycle table. AWS hasn't announced the change.

Is Amazon still releasing AI models?

Yes. On October 5, 2026, AWS made Nova 2.5 Sonic, "our latest speech-to-speech model for natural, real-time voice agents," generally available on Amazon Bedrock in four regions, at the same price as Nova 2 Sonic. Bedrock itself is unaffected: it is AWS's service for running models from many providers, and AWS continues to build agent products, including Bedrock AgentCore and Kiro, according to GeekWire.

The retreat is from building every kind of model in-house, not from AI. The Wall Street Journal reported on October 11, 2026 that Amazon was in talks to buy the world-model startup Decart, as our Decart story covers, and it keeps investing in its own chips and software, such as the TorchNeuron backend for Trainium.

Why did this come back on October 27?

Futurism's July 29 story was posted to Hacker News on October 27 and drew 304 points and 231 comments. Futurism called it a "sustained failure," its own characterization. Its article added no new facts after July. 9to5AI found no new Amazon statement, filing or AWS notice about the AGI organization dated October 2026.

What's confirmed, reported and uncertain

• Confirmed by Amazon (via GeekWire and TNW): the July 22 job cuts in parts of the AGI organization, the San Francisco site closure, the continuing frontier lab under Abbeel and Nova Act's availability.
• Confirmed by AWS documentation: the end-of-life dates for Nova Canvas, Nova Reel and the first Nova Sonic, Nova Premier's legacy status (on a model card AWS removed by October 29), Nova 2 Lite's active status, and Nova 2.5 Sonic's October 5 launch.
• Reported: the "keep the lights on" list (Business Insider, as summarized by eWeek and TheStreet), the 80-person peak (The Information, via GeekWire) and the leadership changes.
• Uncertain: how many people lost jobs, which outlet first reported the Nova pullback, and Nova Premier's final shutdown date: its AWS model card gave both September 14 and "no sooner than" October 31, 2026, before it was removed.