Amazon’s new lab dedicated to developing advanced artificial intelligence debuted on Monday a new model to fuel AI agents, or digital assistants.
Amazon said its new model, Amazon Nova Act, is capable of surfing the web and more AI agents will soon navigate the web than people.
“It’s not going to be too long until these agents can land spacecraft but we’re not there yet in reliability,” the company said in a video introducing the model. “Nova Act meets the models where they are by allowing developers to break down complex jobs into clear steps that the model can follow giving you granular control without the babysitting.”
The project is the product of the new Amazon AGI Labs team that is working to create artificial general intelligence, or a theoretical AI system with capabilities surpassing humans.
The first big announcement from the new team assembled in San Francisco last month is the introduction of its model and a research preview of its corresponding software development kit for developers to build their own agents.
“Our dream is for agents to perform wide-ranging, complex, multi-step tasks like organizing a wedding or handling complex IT tasks to increase business productivity,” the Amazon AGI Labs team said on its blog. “While some use cases are well-suited for today’s technology, multi-step agents prompted with high-level goals still require constant human hovering and supervision.”
Amazon wants its agents capable of accomplishing tasks across both digital and physical environments. Precisely what jobs or functions its AI tools will perform is yet to be determined.
“We think the most valuable use cases for agents have yet to be built,” Amazon AGI Labs said.
The labs team said to make its agents truly “smart and reliable,” it believed agents needed to be trained across a range of different domains.
U.S.-based Amazon users can access the new AI offerings at nova.amazon.com and download Nova Act to make their own agents.
Amazon is far from the only one focused on AGI and agents for its users. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in January that his team knew how to build AGI and that AI agents would enter the workforce this year.
American firm Scale AI teamed with the Pentagon on a program for the military that combines Scale’s “agentic applications” with software from Anduril and large language models from Microsoft.
China’s Manus AI is also rushing to distribute its new AI agent that made waves earlier this month. Access to the Chinese startup’s AI agent will cost $39 per month with an upgraded option carrying a $199 price tag, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.