Amazon Nova AI models reportedly scaled back as Frontier team gets priority

Amazon has reportedly scaled back work on several Amazon Nova AI models and is redirecting resources toward a newer Frontier Model Research group, according to Business Insider, which cited people familiar with the company’s plans. The shift matters because Amazon has been trying to prove it can build competitive foundation models while also selling access to outside AI labs through AWS.

Business Insider reported that development has been reduced on Nova Premier, Nova Omni, Reel and Canvas. Those products are still available to current customers in what the report described as a maintenance mode, rather than being treated as active development priorities.

Amazon introduced the Nova family in December 2024 as a set of models spanning text, image and video use cases. The reported pullback covers the flagship Nova Premier and Omni models, plus Reel for video and Canvas for image generation. No customer numbers, revenue contribution or infrastructure costs for those models were disclosed in the report.

What is Amazon doing with Nova AI models?

According to Business Insider, Amazon is keeping the affected Nova models running for existing users while moving engineering focus away from them. That is a different signal than a full shutdown: customers can still use the products, but the report indicates Amazon is no longer treating most of the line as a core internal model-building effort.

The move follows other changes inside Amazon’s artificial general intelligence organization. Business Insider reported layoffs in the AGI division and the closure of the AGI Lab that Amazon created in 2024 after acquiring Adept. The report did not specify the number of employees affected by the Nova pullback or the AGI changes.

The main beneficiary is Amazon’s Frontier Model Research group, led by Pieter Abbeel, who joined the company through Amazon’s acquisition of talent from robotics startup Covariant. Business Insider reported that Amazon is preparing a new foundation model for its re:Invent conference this fall.

Amazon did not frame the move as a retreat from AI. A spokesperson told Business Insider that AI models remain one of the company’s most important initiatives. The company is also a major backer of Anthropic and OpenAI, with related investments that could exceed $100 billion, according to the report.

For AWS, the change highlights a familiar tension: Amazon wants to offer customers a broad model menu while also proving that its own models belong in the same conversation as the outside labs it supports. Betting more heavily on a frontier research team may concentrate resources, but the report leaves open the commercial question of whether Amazon’s next model will replace the role Nova was supposed to play for developers and enterprise customers.

The timing also puts pressure on re:Invent. If Amazon shows a new foundation model there, buyers will look for more than positioning around “frontier” research. Performance, price, latency, availability on AWS and migration paths from existing Nova products will determine whether the strategy shift is visible to customers or mainly an internal reorganization.

This story draws on original reporting from The Decoder.