When CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin described Jeff Bezos’ startup Project Prometheus as being “really about AI robotics” in an interview on Wednesday, the Amazon founder interrupted with a correction.
“It’s a little premature for me to talk about it, but we are not — we have nothing to do with robotics,” Bezos said. He went on to offer the most detailed public description yet of the secretive startup, for which he is co-CEO: Prometheus is developing an “artificial general engineer,” he said, building next-generation tools for designing physical objects.
Bezos called it “a very, very modern version” of CAD, or computer-aided design, adding that he is “really oversimplifying here,” and reiterating that it’s premature for him to give much detail.
He said Prometheus is “something I got so excited about that I became the co-CEO of the company, putting a lot of time into it, a lot of energy into it.”
The tools Prometheus is building will “help companies like Blue immensely,” Bezos added, referring to his space venture Blue Origin. However, he said, the company “deserves its own special focus” as “its own big idea” rather than being housed inside Amazon or Blue Origin.
His comments mark a rare hint of what’s happening inside a company that has operated almost entirely in stealth since news of its formation was reported in November 2025.
Project Prometheus launched with $6.2 billion in funding, led by Bezos and Vik Bajaj, a former Google X executive. Bloomberg reported in April that the company closed a $10 billion round at a $38 billion valuation, with JPMorgan and BlackRock among the investors.
The company has hired roughly 120 employees from firms including OpenAI, DeepMind, Meta and xAI, and operates out of San Francisco, London and Zurich.
Much of the outside reporting on Prometheus has characterized it as focused on robotics and manufacturing automation, which came in part from analyzing LinkedIn profiles of its hires. Bezos’ description Wednesday as a design-tools company focused on engineering physical objects suggests a different ambition, or at least a more specific one.
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