Garman told WIRED ahead of the event that Amazon will also demonstrate a range of tools to help customers manage generative AI models that he says are often overpriced, unreliable and unpredictable.
These include a way to augment the capabilities of smaller models by using larger models, a system for managing hundreds of different AI agents, and a tool that provides proof that a chatbot’s output is correct. Amazon builds its own AI models, to recommend products on its e-commerce platform and other tasks, but it primarily serves as a platform to help other companies build their own AI programs.
Although Amazon doesn’t have a ChatGPT-like product to promote its AI capabilities, the breadth of its cloud services will give it an advantage in selling generative AI to others, says CEO Steven Dickens and Principal Analyst at HyperFRAME Research. “The breadth of AWS is going to be an interesting thing,” he says.
Amazon’s own line of chips will help it make the AI software it sells more affordable. “Silicon will need to be a key part of any hyperscaler’s strategy in the future,” Dickens says, referring to cloud providers that offer hardware to create the biggest and best AI. He also notes that Amazon has been developing its custom silicon longer than its competitors.
Garman says a growing number of AWS customers are now moving from demonstrations to creating commercially viable products and services incorporating generative AI. “One of the things we’re most excited about is our customers dropping their AI experiments and proofs of concept,” he told WIRED.
Garman says many customers are far less interested in pushing the boundaries of generative AI than in finding ways to make the technology cheaper and more reliable.
A recently announced AWS service called Model Distillation, for example, can produce a smaller model that is faster and less expensive to run, while still having similar capabilities to a larger model. “Let’s say you’re an insurance company,” says Garman. “You can take a whole bunch of questions, put them into a really advanced model, and then use that to train the smaller model to become an expert in those areas.”
Another new cloud tool announced today, Bedrock Agents, can be used to create and manage so-called AI agents that automate useful tasks such as customer support, order processing and analytics. It includes a lead agent who will manage a team of AI minions, providing reports on their operation and coordinating changes. “Basically, you can create an agent that says you’re the boss of all the other agents,” says Garman.