# Adept AI

**Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/adept-ai  
**Vertical:** AI Infra  
**Subcategory:** AI Agents  
**Tier:** Emerging  
**Website:** adept.ai  
**Last Updated:** 2026-04-22

## Summary

Adept AI raised $415M to pioneer computer-use AI agents; its core research and agent team moved to Amazon in 2024 in a landmark talent acquisition while the company continues developing ACT-1 for enterprise automation.

## Company Overview

Adept AI was founded in 2022 by a team of former OpenAI, DeepMind, and Google Brain researchers to build AI that can take actions on computers — navigating software interfaces, filling forms, and executing multi-step workflows in any application. Its ACT-1 model demonstrated the ability to control web browsers and desktop applications through natural language instructions, pioneering the computer-use agent paradigm that Anthropic later commercialized with Claude's computer use feature.

In 2024, Amazon acquired Adept's foundational research and key personnel including co-founders David Luan and Ashish Vaswani (author of the original "Attention Is All You Need" Transformer paper) in a landmark talent acquisition valued at $350M+. The move gave Amazon access to cutting-edge agent research for its AWS AI services while Adept retained its enterprise automation products and remaining team.

The company raised $415M from investors including General Catalyst, Addition, and Microsoft. Adept's enterprise automation suite, which enables companies to automate software workflows without APIs, continues serving customers in financial services and healthcare. The Adept story illustrates the intense competition for top AI talent and the emerging market for computer-use agents that autonomously operate software.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What did Adept AI build?
Adept built ACT-1, an AI model that can operate software applications through natural language — clicking buttons, filling forms, and executing multi-step workflows in web browsers and desktop apps without requiring APIs.

### Why did Adept's team join Amazon?
Amazon acquired Adept's core research team and co-founders (including Transformer co-author Ashish Vaswani) in a talent acquisition to advance AWS's AI agent capabilities, while Adept retained its enterprise products.

### What is computer-use AI?
Computer-use AI agents interact with software by perceiving screen content and executing mouse and keyboard actions — enabling automation of any software workflow without requiring API integrations or custom code.

### What happened to Adept AI after its Amazon acquisition?
In 2024, Amazon acquired Adept AI's core research team and technology assets including co-founders David Luan and others. Following the acquisition, the remaining Adept entity pivoted to focus on enterprise automation products for specific business workflows rather than continuing foundational model research. The acquisition gave Amazon key AI talent and technology to accelerate its own AI agent development.

### What was Adept AI's original mission and ACT-1 model?
Adept AI was founded in 2022 to build AI systems that can take actions on computers—navigating software interfaces, filling forms, and executing workflows using natural language instructions. Its ACT-1 model demonstrated the ability to control web browsers and desktop applications, pioneering the computer-use agent paradigm that became commercially significant when Anthropic launched Claude's computer use feature.

### Who founded Adept AI and what is their background?
Adept AI was founded by David Luan (former VP of Engineering at OpenAI), Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar (co-authors of the Transformer paper), and other researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Google Brain. The team represented some of the most credentialed AI researchers in the world, which drove Adept's ability to raise significant venture capital before the Amazon acquisition.

### How much funding did Adept AI raise before the acquisition?
Adept AI raised approximately $415 million across multiple rounds, including a $350 million Series B in 2023 at a $1 billion valuation backed by General Catalyst, Spark Capital, Microsoft, Nvidia, Atlassian Ventures, and others. This made it one of the most heavily funded AI agent startups before the eventual talent acquisition by Amazon.

### What enterprise products does Adept offer post-acquisition?
The remaining Adept entity post-Amazon acquisition has focused on specific enterprise automation workflows, building task-specific AI agents for business processes rather than general-purpose computer control. The company continues to operate with a smaller team focused on productizing automation for specific enterprise use cases in sectors like financial services and operations.

## Tags

ai-powered, automation, b2b, enterprise, infrastructure, platform, startup, saas

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*Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-22.*