Amazon Is Spending $1 Billion on AI Engineers | Fast Five Shorts
This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five segment explores Amazon Web Services' $1 billion investment to embed AI engineers directly inside customer organizations
Chris Walton and Ben Miller explain why AI success is no longer about choosing the right model. Instead, they argue that adoption, implementation, and business context will determine which retailers gain a lasting competitive advantage. They also discuss why Amazon believes retailers need hands-on support to move AI from experimentation to everyday operations.
Tune in for the full episode here: https://youtu.be/-pwAnA4c7Co
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Transcript
Amazon Web Services is investing 1 billion US to create a forward deployed engineering organization that embeds teams of AWS engineers directly inside customer businesses to build and deploy production AI systems.
Speaker A:So according to change age, these AWS frontier teams work inside a customer's own business with engineering and security teams building with the customer's data governance and processes.
Speaker A:AWS claims.
Speaker A:Amazon claims the AWS FDE forward deployed engineering teams can cut AI deployment timelines from months to days and the program is explicitly designed so customers are self sufficient once the engagement ends.
Speaker A:Chris with where does this AWS full deployed engineering news signal about the AI arms race within retail?
Speaker B:Ooh, the AI arms race.
Speaker B:That's a cool phrase, Ben.
Speaker B:Well, it tells me that the AI arms race isn't about what model you're using anymore.
Speaker B:You can basically pick one at this point, but the key is really getting used to using one inside of your organization as quickly as possible for maximum impact.
Speaker B:That's what's happening here and that's why AWS and others are taking this approach.
Speaker B:And the problem with that is that the average retailer doesn't know how to figure this out on their own, like how to actually stand up the agents that are going to do the work on the data and information that the retailer has.
Speaker B:Because like we learn like, like I think I talked about this in the Shop Talk Europe takeaways, you know, podcast.
Speaker B:Like an agent is like your employee on day one.
Speaker B:You have to give it the right training to make it successful.
Speaker B:And so that's fundamentally what's happening here is Amazon is saying, like, look, we realize now you need engineering help to make that work and the average retailer is not going to be able to figure this out on their own and therefore the money is flowing in this direction to not only justify it, almost say help justify what people think is a big opportunity.
Speaker B:So the money's still flowing and you know, we haven't necessarily seen the holy grail or the, the gold fall to the bottom line, you know, or whatever.
Speaker B:The profit all fall the bottom line from AI's deployment.
Speaker B:So like it's still rushing there and my hunch is it'll be there, but it's going to, I think it's smart, it's going to take efforts like this and I think the, the smart retailers would get behind it.
Speaker B:They're probably not going to get behind it with aws, which is one of the interesting things about this announcement.
Speaker B:But they got to get behind this approach, I think one with other folks.
Speaker B:If they're not going to use aws.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree, I agree.
Speaker A:Look, crucial to AI success is adoption and context.
Speaker A:And context is the bit that still isn't being discussed enough across the industry.
Speaker A:Tailoring models, training them to your specific businesses.
Speaker A:My assumption is that context, and this context layer is absolutely built into this.
Speaker A:The fact that Amazon feels the need to invest a billion in this initiative absolutely highlights the importance of this unlock.
Speaker A:And they'll only be doing this if AWS had seen this was a barrier that they needed to do this to drive adoption and to help their customers, so.
Speaker A:Completely agree.
Speaker A:I think it's also quite fun that it follows the Kroger story so quickly.
Speaker A:So many people across the industry have had so much to say about Kroger's potential acquisition and that's kind of 1.6 billion of spend.
Speaker A:And here's Amazon saying, yeah, we're going to.
Speaker A:We're going to spend a billion on this.
Speaker A:To which most people go, yeah, that sounds good, and then move on.
Speaker A:And this, this is the great concentration in action, isn't it?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:That there are things that it's possible for Amazon and Walmart to do that others.
Speaker A:And let's be honest, you know, Kroger is not small.
Speaker A:You know, just yesterday the NRF ranked it as a number four retailer in the whole of the us.
Speaker A:So I think that's an interesting point.
Speaker A:But, yeah, it's telling this story for me that AI adoption is not easy and you need experts and you need help, otherwise you're just not going to unlock that potential.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think it also tells you about the relative profit of software versus running physical stores too.
Speaker B:Particularly physical grocery.
Speaker B:Particularly grocery, when you put it in context.
Speaker B:Right, yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:100%.
