Amazon Doubles Down on AI Agents with New Dedicated Group
Amazon.com Inc. is making a significant move to bolster its artificial intelligence capabilities, forming a new internal group explicitly dedicated to AI agents. The initiative, confirmed by an internal email obtained by Reuters, signals Amazon’s strategic focus on automating more customer interactions through sophisticated AI systems.
The new team will operate within Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud infrastructure division. Veteran AWS executive Swami Sivasubramanian will lead the group. Previously, Sivasubramanian headed Amazon’s AI and data teams. The formation of this dedicated group underscores Amazon’s belief in the transformative potential of AI agents. In an email to employees, AWS Chief Executive Matt Garman emphasized the importance of this technology. “Agentic AI has the potential to be the next multi-billion business for AWS,” said Garman.
According to the email, Sivasubramanian will report directly to Garman on the progress of this initiative, highlighting its strategic importance to the company. AI agents represent the next generation of AI systems designed to perform tasks independently on behalf of users. These agents surpass standard chatbots by proactively taking actions, thus saving users time and effort.
Swami Sivasubramanian, now leading Amazon’s AI agent efforts.
The development of AI agents is a rapidly growing area. The technology builds upon the advancements in generative AI. Companies such as OpenAI, with its Operator and Deep Research tools, are leading the charge. Major tech competitors, including Salesforce, Google, ServiceNow, and Microsoft, have also invested significantly in AI agent technology.
Last week, Amazon announced the initial AI agent capabilities for its voice service, Alexa, which will roll out later this month. These new capabilities will allow Alexa to handle tasks like grocery ordering, booking rides with Uber, and making dinner reservations. Garman expressed his confidence in the technology, stating, “We have the opportunity to help our customers innovate even faster and unlock more possibilities, and I firmly believe that AI agents are core to this next wave of innovation.”
While the primary driver of this new group is likely for the AWS unit to improve customer experience, it’s also expected that the group will look to improve cloud infrastructure management, among other applications.
Corporate Restructuring to Accelerate Innovation
In a separate internal communication, also seen by Reuters, AWS Senior Vice President Peter DeSantis announced changes involving Amazon BedRock and Amazon SageMaker. DeSantis is moving these AI services into the compute organization. Furthermore, DeSantis will be forming another new group designed to combine customer experiences with commerce functionalities. According to DeSantis, these changes will help the company “accelerate innovation.”
