Jeff Bezos' New AI Venture Quietly Acquired an Agentic Computing Startup (www.wired.com)

Jeff Bezos and entrepreneur Vik Bajaj are quietly building a deep-pocketed AI effort called Project Prometheus—backed by about $6.2 billion—and have acquired agentic-computing startup General Agents, according to corporate filings and reporting. The deal folded Sherjil Ozair (ex-DeepMind/Tesla) and roughly three dozen researchers into Prometheus alongside other hires and advisors (including former Nvidia and Google researchers). Public traces show General Agents’ realtime “computer pilot” Ace—an agent that takes over a user’s computer to perform multi-app tasks—was launched in April and continues to receive updates. The acquisition was executed days after a private dinner where Bajaj and collaborators met AI scientists; many staff later updated LinkedIn to show affiliation with Prometheus. For the AI/ML community this signals a major, well-funded push into agentic systems that operate locally and across applications—capabilities useful not only for personal automation but also for automating complex manufacturing workflows Prometheus reportedly targets (computers, cars, spacecraft). Technically, Ace’s selling point is low-latency, on-device “lightspeed” control across apps, which could become a critical component if Prometheus integrates such agents into end-to-end industrial automation. The purchase also underscores growing consolidation for talent and IP in agent tech, raises competitive pressure on startups (and investors), and highlights that large-scale, capital-intensive efforts are betting on agentic autonomy and edge/real-time execution as strategic differentiators.