Boston Dynamics' Third CEO Inherits a Plan for 25,000 Atlas Units, With the First Rollout Not Due Until 2028
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Boston Dynamics' Third CEO Inherits a Plan for 25,000 Atlas Units, With the First Rollout Not Due Until 2028
Rohit Prasad, formerly Amazon's head scientist for Alexa and AGI, takes over eight months after Robert Playter left, with Hyundai now the sole owner.
Boston Dynamics named Rohit Prasad chief executive on Oct. 6, effective Oct. 7, making him the third person to lead the company since its 1992 founding. He replaces Amanda McMaster, the chief financial officer, who ran the company on an interim basis after Robert Playter left in February, according to The Robot Report and Manufacturing Dive.
The appointment is easy to describe. The number that matters in it is harder to find: 25,000, the count of Atlas humanoids Hyundai plans to deploy across Kia factories and other plants, with an initial rollout in 2028, as Manufacturing Dive reports. Neither outlet gives a production volume for Atlas, a unit price or a ship date for the new four-finger Atlas hand. Related hardware coverage: the Teradyne and Elite Robots cobot settlement and Schneider Electric's $205-a-share PTC deal.
Who Prasad is
Prasad was senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence at Amazon, where he spent 12 years and, per The Robot Report, later led development of the Amazon Nova foundation model family. Before Amazon he spent nearly 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies, leading machine-learning research for U.S. government and commercial customers.
He is expected to join the board once approval is complete. In the company's statement he said Boston Dynamics "is uniquely positioned to advance physical AI through its world-class robotics expertise." Jaehoon Chang, vice chair of Hyundai and chair of the Boston Dynamics board, said Hyundai was "thrilled to welcome Rohit to lead the company into this exciting new era of real-world physical AI," per The Robot Report.
Neither outlet reports any robotics-hardware experience on his record. His background is speech, language models and machine learning.
What he inherits
Hyundai bought SoftBank's remaining shares in July, according to Manufacturing Dive, which leaves it the sole owner. The Robot Report dates Hyundai's controlling stake to 2021, when it acquired it from SoftBank Group.
Manufacturing Dive reports that Hyundai plans 25,000 Atlas units, and that former employees told Semafor they felt pressure to integrate "tens of thousands" of humanoids into Hyundai plants within a few years. Those are two different horizons: the first is a 2028 start, the second a pressure described by staff who have since left.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| February 2026 | Robert Playter steps down after six years as CEO | Manufacturing Dive |
| May 2026 | Semafor reports the COO, chief strategy officer and other senior staff left | Manufacturing Dive |
| June 2026 | Pilot robot training begins at Hyundai's Georgia application center | Manufacturing Dive |
| July 2026 | Hyundai buys SoftBank's remaining stake | Manufacturing Dive |
| Oct. 1, 2026 | Four-finger Atlas hand unveiled | The Robot Report |
| Oct. 7, 2026 | Prasad takes over as CEO | Manufacturing Dive |
The Robot Report adds that the company plans to spend $100 million expanding its facilities in Waltham, Massachusetts, and that Spot 5.2 adds agentic workflows, with Orbit AIVI now running on Google Gemini. Manufacturing Dive says a robotics center opened at Hyundai's EV plant outside Savannah, Georgia, in September, and that the company plans to explore use cases outside automotive next year.
What is not in either report
Neither outlet gives deployed unit counts for Spot or Stretch, a layoff figure, a funding commitment from Hyundai, or any named customer beyond Hyundai and its affiliates. The 25,000 figure rests on one outlet, Manufacturing Dive, and The Terminal did not find it in the company's own statement.
The denominator matters. A plan for 25,000 units starting in 2028 says nothing about how many Atlas robots exist today, and the 2028 date is for an initial rollout, not for completion. If the plan is spread evenly over the first five years of deployment, it implies 5,000 units a year, though no source gives a schedule and that figure is our arithmetic, not a forecast.
What would change my read: a published Atlas production target for 2027, or a statement from Hyundai putting a unit count against the 2028 start. Until one appears, the first hard test of Prasad's tenure is whether the Georgia pilot results get quantified in hours worked and tasks completed.
Sources
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