AWS AI VP And Longtime Innovator Says ‘Farewell To Amazon’

AWS AI Vice President Matt Wood, who helped launched everything from Lambda and SageMaker to DeepRacer and EMR, is leaving Amazon after 15 years. Here’s what you need to know.

Longtime Amazon Web Services AI innovator and frequent on-stage keynote speaker Matt Wood is leaving the cloud computing giant.

“After 15 incredible years, it’s time for me to say farewell to Amazon,” said Wood in a LinkedIn post Wednesday morning, which has already generated hundreds of comments.

Wood is AWS’ vice president of artificial intelligence. He first joined AWS in 2010 and has been part of every AWS re:Invent conference since it began in 2012.

Wood has worked across AWS cloud businesses—including helping to launch Lambda, Kinesis, SageMaker, DeepRacer, Athena, and EMR—with a special focus on data, analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, according to his AWS biography.

“When I joined AWS, the cloud computing landscape was just beginning to take shape. It has been an extraordinary journey to be part of a team that has fundamentally transformed how businesses operate, grow, and innovate,” said Wood.

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In his AI VP role, he worked closely with customers, partners, and internal AWS teams to drive effective use of AI across every industry.

At AWS, Wood said he had the privilege of being at the forefront of the future, “putting technology that was once out of reach into the hands of every builder and business, helping to reinvent entire industries.”

Wood could not be reached for comment by press time.

AWS AI Leader’s Past And Future

After six years working in product management and strategy at AWS, Wood was promoted to vice president of machine learning and business intelligence in 2016. Then in 2022, he became vice president of AI for AWS, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Wood has worked with some of AWS’ largest customers including the National Football League (NFL), Cerner, Intuit, Pinterest, GE, FINRA, Celgene, and NASA.

AWS frequently showcased Wood on stage during many of its conferences.

For example, at AWS Summit in New York City this summer, Wood was the keynote speaker. He has also been on stage multiple times during the company’s largest conference of the year: AWS re:Invent.

Before joining Amazon, he completed a Ph.D. in machine learning and was a post- doctoral fellow at Cornell University.

In terms of where Wood will land next, he says, “stay tuned.”

“I’m excited to continue bringing reinvention, transformation, and the future to more organizations in my next role (more to come on that; stay tuned),” Wood said in his post on LinkedIn.