Amazon has appointed a new team with the primary goal of inventing "breakthrough" consumer products. CNBC, which tracked the job listings and LinkedIn employee profiles related to ZeroOne, reports that the team is spread across Seattle, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale, California.
ZeroOne is led by Microsoft veteran J Allard, who joined Amazon about nine months ago. According to his LinkedIn profile, Allard presents himself as the Vice President of ZeroOne. At Microsoft, he worked on over 40 shipped products and helped create the Xbox line of gaming consoles during his 19-year tenure.
Until now, Amazon's research and development arm, Lab126, has been a wellspring of major fan favorites, including Kindle-branded e-readers, Fire TV streaming devices, and its Echo line of smart speakers powered by Alexa.
Job postings related to ZeroOne give an idea of what the e-commerce wants from the new team, which could include new smart home devices. The team is focused on both software and hardware projects. "As an Applied Scientist, you will be conceiving, designing, and bringing to market computer vision techniques for a new smart-home product," reads the description of a job posting for Seattle.
One job posting refers to it as the "Emerging Devices team." Another job posting for a Senior Customer Insights Manager in San Francisco says, "You will own the methodology and execution of concept testing and early feedback for ZeroOne programs."
Amazon's Emerging Devices team is part of its Devices and Services unit, headed by Panos Panay since October 2023. Panay is also a Microsoft veteran who left the Redmond giant as its Chief Product Officer, leading the development of Windows and Surface devices at the time.
A company spokesperson confirmed to the publication that Allard is overseeing the ZeroOne team but didn't comment on the specific workings of the group. The new team includes employees from other Amazon units such as Halo sleep tracker, Luna gaming service, and Alexa voice assistant.
2 Comments - Add comment