Amazon Winds Down Nova Premier, Omni, Reel and Canvas AI Models in Major Strategy Overhaul

Amazon is halting active development on four flagship in-house AI models — Nova Premier, Nova Omni, Reel, and Canvas — placing them in maintenance-only mode for existing customers, Business Insider reported on July 28. The company is instead prioritizing a new Frontier Model Research group led by UC Berkeley professor Pieter Abbeel, acquired via the Covariant robotics startup deal, with a new foundation model expected to debut at Amazon's re:Invent conference later in 2026. The overhaul follows the closure of Amazon's AGI Lab in San Francisco and consolidation of AGI work under SVP Peter DeSantis, as Amazon continues to invest heavily in external partners Anthropic (~$13B) and OpenAI ($38B).

Amazon Winds Down Nova Premier, Omni, Reel and Canvas AI Models in Major Strategy Overhaul - Amazon is halting active development on Nova Premier, Omni, Reel, and Canvas, placing them in 'keep the lights on' maintenance mode for existing customers 1 https://the-decoder.com/amazon-reportedly-scales-back-its-nova-ai-models-and-bets-on-a-new-frontier-research-team/ - A new Frontier Model Research group led by UC Berkeley professor Pieter Abbeel, acquired via the Covariant robotics startup deal, is now the company's top AI model priority 2 https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/28/amazon-winds-down-most-flagship-ai-models-in-strat/ - Amazon shut down its AGI Lab in San Francisco after co-founder David Luan departed in February, and consolidated the broader AGI organization under SVP Peter DeSantis in December 2025 3 https://www.trendingtopics.eu/amazon-scales-back-its-own-ai-models-to-focus-on-infra-openai-and-anthropic/ - The company continues to support Nova 2 Lite, Nova 2 Sonic, Nova Forge, and Nova Act, while investing heavily in external partners Anthropic ~$13B cumulative and OpenAI $38B partnership 3 https://www.trendingtopics.eu/amazon-scales-back-its-own-ai-models-to-focus-on-infra-openai-and-anthropic/ - A new flagship foundation model is expected to debut at Amazon's re:Invent conference later in 2026 1 https://the-decoder.com/amazon-reportedly-scales-back-its-nova-ai-models-and-bets-on-a-new-frontier-research-team/ Amazon is pulling the plug on active development of four flagship in-house AI models — Nova Premier, Nova Omni, Reel, and Canvas — in a sweeping overhaul of its artificial intelligence strategy, Business Insider reported on July 28 1 . The models will remain accessible to existing customers in a maintenance-only mode internally designated as "KTLO" keep the lights on , but will no longer receive new features or improvements. In their place, Amazon is betting on a new Frontier Model Research group led by Pieter Abbeel, a UC Berkeley professor and robotics researcher who joined the company through its acquisition of startup Covariant 2 . A new foundation model from the group is expected to debut at Amazon's annual re:Invent conference later this year, and may carry the Nova brand . 1 https://the-decoder.com/amazon-reportedly-scales-back-its-nova-ai-models-and-bets-on-a-new-frontier-research-team/ The retreat marks the most significant restructuring of Amazon's AI model efforts since CEO Andy Jassy elevated artificial intelligence to a company-wide priority. The moves follow the closure of Amazon's AGI Lab in San Francisco and layoffs among the company's frontier AI researchers — staff previously considered among Amazon's most valued technical talent 3 . What's Being Cut Four Nova models are losing active development: Nova Premier, the company's highest-capability language model; Nova Omni, its multimodal system; Reel, a video-generation model; and Canvas, an image-generation tool 1 . All four launched or were expanded during 2024 and 2025 as Amazon sought to compete with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic in the foundation model race. Amazon will continue supporting a narrower set of models: Nova 2 Lite and Nova 2 Sonic lightweight and speech models , Nova Forge a customization service , and Nova Act an AI agent technology 3 . An Amazon spokesperson said the company is 'continuing to invest in and support the Nova models our customers rely on today' and is 'investing in the next generation of frontier model research' . 2 https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/28/amazon-winds-down-most-flagship-ai-models-in-strat/ The Organizational Shakeup The model wind-down is part of a broader reorganization of Amazon's AI research apparatus. In December 2025, SVP Peter DeSantis consolidated the company's AGI work under his leadership, replacing longtime Alexa executive Rohit Prasad 3 . Multiple top AGI executives have departed over the past year. Amazon's AGI Lab — the San Francisco research group built in 2024 after the company hired most of the team behind AI startup Adept — was shut down after Adept co-founder David Luan left in February 3 . Layoffs subsequently hit frontier researchers across the AGI organization. The new Frontier Model Research group under Abbeel represents a fresh start. Abbeel, a prominent figure in reinforcement learning and robotics, came to Amazon through its acquisition of Covariant, a warehouse robotics company he co-founded 2 . His team is now the central axis of Amazon's in-house model ambitions. The Partner Strategy Even as Amazon scales back its own models, the company has massively expanded its financial commitments to external AI labs. Amazon has invested approximately $13 billion cumulatively in Anthropic, including an additional $5 billion plus up to $20 billion in milestone-based capital. Anthropic has committed to spending over $100 billion on AWS over ten years and secured 5 gigawatts of Trainium compute capacity 3 . In November 2025, Amazon struck a $38 billion multi-year partnership with OpenAI, under which OpenAI runs workloads on Amazon EC2 UltraServers with hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs 3 . Full capacity from that deal is targeted for the end of 2026. The dual-track approach — maintaining a smaller in-house model effort while bankrolling Anthropic and OpenAI as AWS customers — reflects Amazon's recognition that its core advantage lies in cloud infrastructure rather than model research. More than 100,000 customers already run Anthropic's Claude models on AWS 3 . Why It Matters Amazon's Nova models never gained the traction of rival offerings from OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic. The company struggled to generate consumer excitement around its models, instead positioning them primarily for enterprise use through AWS Bedrock 2 . The wind-down acknowledges what industry observers have noted for months: Amazon was spreading its AI model resources too thin. The pivot to a single, focused frontier effort under Abbeel signals Amazon's intent to compete on quality rather than breadth. If successful, the new model debuting at re:Invent would represent the clearest test yet of whether Amazon can build a competitive foundation model — or whether its future in AI lies primarily as infrastructure provider and investor 1 . What's Next All eyes turn to re:Invent, Amazon's annual cloud computing conference typically held in late November or early December in Las Vegas. The debut of the Frontier Model Research group's first model will determine whether Amazon can credibly compete with frontier labs or whether the company's AI model strategy is effectively an infrastructure-and-partnerships play. Amazon shares traded at approximately $231 on July 28, within a 52-week range of $196 to $279 4 . The stock showed minimal reaction to the news, suggesting investors had already priced in Amazon's pivot toward an infrastructure-first AI strategy. Companies mentioned Further sources 1 The Decoder, "Amazon reportedly scales back its Nova AI models and bets on a ne… ↗ https://the-decoder.com/amazon-reportedly-scales-back-its-nova-ai-models-and-bets-on-a-new-frontier-research-team/ 2 The Spokesman-Review / Reuters, "Amazon winds down most flagship AI models in s… ↗ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/28/amazon-winds-down-most-flagship-ai-models-in-strat/ 3 Trending Topics, "Amazon Scales Back Its Own AI Models to Focus on Infra, OpenA… ↗ https://www.trendingtopics.eu/amazon-scales-back-its-own-ai-models-to-focus-on-infra-openai-and-anthropic/ 4 Investing.com, Amazon AMZN stock price data, accessed July 29, 2026 ↗ https://www.investing.com/equities/amazon-com-inc The stories that matter, in one email. Free — unsubscribe anytime.