Boston Dynamics

Prasad takes over from CFO Amanda McMaster, who served as interim CEO after Robert Playter stepped down in February — nearly nine months earlier. He was previously senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence at Amazon; Boston Dynamics said the appointment accelerates its physical-AI strategy of combining robotics with advanced AI to commercialize intelligent machines at scale.

Previous Atlas hands had seven degrees of freedom and were designed to grasp a wide variety of objects. The new one drops the pinkie for four fingers and 13 DOF with direct actuation, shifting the focus from grasping to manipulating objects and using tools, and is explicitly designed for mass manufacturing. Boston Dynamics said it weighed many options, including one-thumb versus two-thumb designs.

The Robotics Metaplant Application Center near Savannah, Ga. is a testbed and training center for integrating Atlas humanoids directly into parent Hyundai's automotive manufacturing operations. "Together with Hyundai Motor Group, we are pioneering physical AI at enterprise scale," said Zack Jackowski, chief product and technology officer.