Photo: iStock | Guillaume
April 18, 2023
Is Amazon’s Generative AI Push a Cloud Gamechanger?
Amazon.com’s cloud computing division last week released a suite of generative AI tools that can enable companies to build chatbots, generate and summarize text, and classify images based on a prompt. Rather than build AI models entirely by itself, Amazon is recruiting third parties to host models on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS’ new service, Bedrock, enables developers to develop generative AI-powered apps based on pre-trained models from startups including AI21 Labs, Anthropic and Stability AI, accessible via an application program interface (API). Also available is access to Amazon’s first-party language model, called Titan.
Amazon, the world’s largest provider of cloud computing services, is taking a different path from its closest competitors. Microsoft has invested $10 billion in OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer. Google has invested in the artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic. Amazon has also not yet come with a consumer-facing AI tool, like Microsoft and Google.
Amazon said providing access to multiple large language models will allow companies to customize their generative AI applications.
Beyond AI tools, AWS is promoting its in-house chips as a cost-effective solution to power the AI. Another feature, CodeWhisperer, which generates and fixes computer code, will be accessible for free for individual developers.
“Customers have told us there are a few big things standing in their way today,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS’ VP of machine learning, in a blog post “First, they need a straightforward way to find and access high-performing [foundational models] that give outstanding results and are best-suited for their purposes. Second, customers want integration into applications to be seamless, without having to manage huge clusters of infrastructure or incur large costs.”
“Most companies want to use these large language models, but the really good ones take billions of dollars to train and many years, and most companies don’t want to go through that.” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC’s Squawk Box. “So what they want to do is they want to work off of a foundational model that’s big and great already and then have the ability to customize it for their own purposes. And that’s what Bedrock is.”
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Will generative AI transform cloud computing? What do you think of AWS’ multiple-LLMs (large language models) approach to helping companies customize generative AI applications in the cloud?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Dion Kenney
COO, Mondofora
John Lietsch
CEO/Founder, Align Business Consulting
Lisa Goller
B2B Content Strategist
Recent Discussions
More Discussions
Will Shrinking Help Puma Re-Spark Brand Heat?
Puma is gearing up for a significant push to restructure operations. Will it be able to…Retail Tech’s Great Reset, or Baselining and Building Trust: Reflections From Groceryshop 2025
Groceryshop 2025 suggested a new baseline was being established. Is this the case?As Shopper Satisfaction Declines and Associates Show Frustration, How Can Retailers Fix ‘Blind Spots’?
Retailers are facing a decline in satisfaction from shoppers and rising frustrations from associates. What’s the…
Generative AI will change everything, including how we think of our society and what our role, as humans, should be in relation to work, the economy, human creativity, and value creation. Despite how impressive the current AI tools may be, this is only the beginning. AWS’s multi-LLMs approach is a recognition that there isn’t a single path forward or dominant technology, and won’t be for the foreseeable future.
I’m not sure that this is as much a representation of how AI will transform cloud computing as it is of the AI hype meeting reality. AI needs considerable amounts of computing power and AWS is facing pressure to remain competitive in the “clouds.” By inviting and encouraging the development of practical AI applications that can be more accurately trained to solve real business problems, companies will be able to leverage the power of AI and AWS can continue to evolve and remain a competitive and dominant force in cloud computing.
Generative AI seems poised to transform everything. AWS’ new launch shows tech leaders are empowering businesses and people to gain digital maturity and productivity.
We’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to generative AI. We are entering a technology era that will be every bit as important as when the Internet became accessible to everyone. While Microsoft and Google have invested billions in this technology, companies like Amazon also have the financial strength to do the same. All of this is going to be great for consumers. Get ready for some exciting times ahead. This “train” has barely left the station!
An ecosystem play (Amazon providing access to others) to generative accelerators is certainly a bit different than Microsoft and Google’s approach — it makes it a bit easier for developers to bootstrap an application by having the model readily accessible — but at the end of the day, you could just… build an application on Azure or Google Cloud and call ChatGPT’s API. Just every other piece of SaaS technology on the market.
If anything, the flip side of the argument might be true — if the perception is Google Cloud or Azure have exclusive capabilities that are native and only accessible through if you’re also using their cloud for compute (this is the lock-in strategy), then they have a bit of the competitive advantage.
But this space is so fluid it’s hard to see where any of this is going to land or how a cloud provider would instantly create a competitive advantage.