The generative artificial intelligence wave has entered the infrastructure stage. Hyperscalers and solutions companies are laying out the gen AI blueprint for simplified, secure and scalable deployment.

One such name is Amazon Web Services Inc., whose messaging signals an accelerating focus on enterprise AI, marked by rapid innovation, an expanding partner ecosystem and support for broadened app layers.

On set with theCUBE at AWS Summit New York 2024.

“I think [AWS’ Matt Wood] used the platform to really establish the fact that AWS is not just a participant in the gen AI wars, they are the leader in it,” said Zeus Kerravala (pictured, left), founder of ZK Research and CUBE Collective analyst. “He put up some good data points that over the last year they had 236 updates, I think the number was, which was more than all the other cloud companies combined. Then he rolled out customer after customer, Nasdaq, Bayer … I recently just talked to Rocket Mortgage as well.”

In two separate interviews, theCUBE Research’s Executive Analyst John Furrier spoke with Kerravala and Sarbjeet Johal (right), founder of Stackpane and CUBE Collective analyst, to recap the event keynotes at this week’s AWS Summit New York. They discussed AWS’ announcements and the broader trends sweeping gen AI application development.

Gen AI on AWS: Enterprise vs. developer focus

A key emerging trend is the tilt toward enterprise solutions over developer-centric innovations. While some heed has been given to developers, such as with CodeWhisperer, a tool designed to accelerate coding with gen AI on AWS, the primary focus remained on enterprise applications throughout the event, according to Kerravala.

“I think it took a backseat to a lot of the enterprise things,” he said. “[Wood] talked a lot about models, and I think their approach to gen AI has been there isn’t one model to rule them all. They’re going to be open [and] take more of a platform approach. The developer and the builder part will come. I think right now there is such an arms race within businesses to get gen AI into their contact centers, their workforce and their employees.”

Partnerships are a cornerstone of AWS’ strategy. Partners, including resellers and global system integrators such as Deloitte Ltd., Accenture PLC and IBM Corp., play a crucial role in AWS’ ecosystem. The Competency Program, which now includes over 60 global partners, signals a commitment to gen AI on AWS, with a robust network that can deliver solutions effectively. The integration of AWS Partner Network with Marketplace has streamlined the partner ecosystem, making it more cohesive and better aligned with AWS’ strategic goals.

“There’s GSIs, there’s VARs, there’s things like that that all can participate in the AWS ecosystem,” he said. “Marketplace is fantastic for certain things, and a lot of customers are going to buy from that. But a lot of customers prefer the traditional partners. A lot of them, especially big enterprises, go the GSI route. You need to cater to all of those different things.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Zeus Kerravala, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of AWS Summit New York: 

AWS’ key event announcements and a transformed application stack

AWS is positioning itself as the “builders’ cloud,” and this week’s announcements serve to corroborate that ideology. The first is Anthropic Claude 3, which has added model fine-tuning capabilities. Its value is crucial for developers seeking to optimize gen AI on AWS for specific applications, according to Johal.

“I think the biggest one was the Anthropic Claude 3 announcement, that’s the first time you can do fine-tuning of that model,” he said. “This is the only cloud, they say, where you can do that. There were a lot of enhancements on the Q, and they’re expanding the scope of the Q from business to low code to pro code. I think the use cases in that segment and the Q in the middle are kind of overlapping.”

Another announcement is AWS App Studio, a low-code development platform. It represents a significant step toward democratizing app development with a simplified pathway for creating applications, catering to both novice and experienced developers.

Gen AI on AWS is transforming enterprises at the application stack layer. This shift is characterized by multiple models and modalities in use, fundamentally changing how applications are developed and deployed. While current implementations are still in their infancy, the innovation potential is immense, Johal pointed out.

“The way we write applications will change,” he said. “We’ll be using many models, it’s a multi-model, multimodal world. How we will weave those models into our applications is still to be seen. Right now, what we are cooking up is very rudimentary stuff.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Sarbjeet Johal, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of AWS Summit New York: 

Photo: SiliconANGLE