In June, Vik Bajaj, a tech entrepreneur, hosted a private dinner at Saison, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco, inviting journalists and scientists to discuss AI. Among the attendees was Sherjil Ozair, a former leader at DeepMind and Tesla, hinting at a significant partnership in the making. The following day, records indicate Bajaj was finalizing an acquisition deal with Ozair’s startup, General Agents, which specializes in agentic AI technology.
Earlier in the year, Bajaj began collaborating with Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, on an ambitious AI initiative called Project Prometheus. With backing exceeding $6 billion, including significant investment from Bezos, Project Prometheus aims to create sophisticated AI systems applicable in manufacturing sectors ranging from computers to spacecraft.
Bajaj’s venture has rapidly expanded, employing over 100 staff, among whom are Ozair and several former colleagues from General Agents. Recently, details released by The New York Times confirmed that Bezos and Bajaj would co-lead the project. However, the specifics of the acquisition of General Agents remained unreported until now.
Documents from Delaware show Bajaj established a company to facilitate the acquisition of General Agents the day after the dinner, completing the merger shortly thereafter. The newly formed entity is now based in San Francisco at the address of Foresite Labs, a biotech incubator led by Bajaj.
After the merger, General Agents co-founder William Guss, who previously worked at OpenAI, expressed a desire on social media to connect with people in U.S. manufacturing to explore the landscape. Following the New York Times article, Guss and others updated their professional profiles to reflect their new roles at Project Prometheus.
Significant information about Project Prometheus is still elusive, such as its official name and headquarters. However, the attendees at Bajaj’s dinner signal the caliber of talent joining the initiative. Notably, Kamyar Azizzadenesheli, a former Nvidia researcher, and Ashish Vaswani and Jakob Uszkoreit, acclaimed for their work on AI transformers, are also involved but missed the dinner.
General Agents, founded by Ozair, made headlines earlier this year with the launch of Ace, a “real-time computer pilot” capable of automating actions across different applications based on user commands. This technology positions the firm at the forefront of developing computer agents for everyday tasks. Despite ongoing developments, the long-term role of Ace within Project Prometheus remains unclear.
Harsha Abegunasekara, CEO of Donely, a competitor to General Agents, acknowledged the acquisition’s mixed implications for the market. Some investors view General Agents as a formidable competitor being removed; others are concerned about going head-to-head with a Bezos-backed entity if technology like Ace becomes integral to Prometheus’s offerings.
Overall, the developments surrounding Project Prometheus and the acquisition of General Agents suggest a significant shift in the landscape of AI and manufacturing, with major investments from influential figures like Bezos setting the stage for advanced innovations.
