Amazon Web Services (AWS) is investing $1 billion to place thousands of artificial intelligence specialists inside customer organisations, in a move that will help businesses use AI in everyday operations rather than experimenting with it.
Dubbed AWS Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE), the unit will work directly with customers to build and deploy so-called “agentic” AI systems to carry out tasks and make decisions with limited human intervention.
AWS says the initiative could cut the time needed to deploy AI systems from months to days, while giving customers the expertise needed to operate them independently.
The engineers will work alongside customers’ business, engineering and security teams, using AI agents to build systems around their data, governance requirements and existing processes.
AWS explained that the approach is different from traditional consultancy because the engagements focus on business results rather than billable hours. Customers are intended to leave with functioning AI systems, as well as new engineering skills, workflows and technical capabilities.
The FDE teams will use an approach AWS calls the AI-Driven Development Lifecycle, in which AI agents assist across the software development process while human engineers oversee and verify their work.
AWS also plans to work with technology partners that can provide expertise in AI models, industry-specific requirements and other technical areas.
The company is already working with organisations including the Allen Institute, Cox Automotive, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, Ricoh and Southwest Airlines.
“The NFL has millions of fans who want to consume football content throughout the year, including the offseason. We innovate at the pace and scale needed to meet the high expectations of our fans,” said Gary Brantley, chief information officer of the National Football League.
“To create new digital experiences for our fans, the NFL partnered with AWS FDE and got engineers building alongside our team to launch into production in just weeks. Together, we created new fan-facing products like NFL Fantasy AI and NFL IQ that allow fans to interact with NFL data like never before. The engagement from fans and broadcasters was measurable from day one and was made possible by AWS’s delivery model.”
One part of the system is a semantic layer deployed inside a customer’s AWS account. It connects to enterprise data sources, enriches metadata and creates a governed, versioned knowledge graph that AI agents can use.
The system is designed to keep an organisation’s specialist knowledge within its software and data, rather than relying on individual employees or external consultants.
AWS also says security will be built into the deployments, with measures including hardware-based isolation and end-to-end encryption. Customer data will remain within the customer’s governance framework.
The investment builds on AWS’s existing work helping businesses deploy AI. The company has been developing AI solutions for customers since 2017, while its Generative AI Innovation Center has worked on thousands of customer projects over the past three years.
Those projects have included work with BMW to reduce service disruptions across 23 million connected vehicles, Jabil to develop a manufacturing assistant for factory workers, and Lyft to resolve driver-support issues 87% faster, according to AWS.
The new organisation will target companies that have moved beyond AI experiments and need the technology operating in real-world business processes.
Regulated industries, financial services firms and government agencies are expected to be among the main customers, where security, governance and the speed of moving AI systems into production can be particularly important.