(Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
If it seems like Amazon is lagging behind competitors like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI when it comes to generative AI, CEO Andy Jassy has an explanation.
In his annual shareholders letter, published today, Jassy says Amazon is less focused on the public narrative, and more on establishing the building blocks needed to make "GenAI" into a new pillar of the company alongside AWS and Prime. He calls those building blocks "primitives," a term the company first used in its 2003 AWS Vision document, the division Jassy founded and led before replacing Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021.
"Being intentional about building primitives requires patience," he says. "Releasing the first couple primitive services can sometimes feel random to customers (or the public at large) before we’ve unveiled how these building blocks come together."
The tech giant launched two AI products last year—Amazon Bedrock, which is generative AI for AWS, and its Amazon Q business chatbot. Plus, it added "dozens of features" to Sagemaker, which debuted in 2017. All are geared toward software engineers and business customers, as opposed to public-facing chatbots like ChatGPT that have become synonymous with generative AI. Although Amazon Q is a chatbot, its purpose is helping developers navigate AWS.
"While we’re building a substantial number of GenAI applications ourselves, the vast majority will ultimately be built by other companies," Jassy says.
The company's developer focus will help "democratize this next seminal phase of AI" and empower others to build their own models rather than Amazon racing to compete directly with ChatGPT. "We’re optimistic that much of this world-changing AI will be built on top of AWS."
Can Jassy convince investors he's steering the company in the right direction? Amazon Q's debut got off to a rocky start as privacy and accuracy issues emerged. Just in case its big internal bets don't pan out, Amazon invested $4 billion in another promising AI company last year, Anthropic. And its giving Alexa some AI smarts, too.
"We're seeing significant traction in our GenAI offerings," Jassy says. "Bedrock is off to a very strong start with tens of thousands of active customers after just a few months."