Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud unit is making significant strides in the artificial intelligence (AI) market by developing a new program. The program aims to assist customers in developing and deploying innovative AI products, placing Amazon in direct competition with Microsoft and Google.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to establish the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, a platform that will connect clients with AI and machine learning experts from the company. Amazon is investing a substantial $100 million to support the launch of this project. The center will cater to a diverse range of industries, including healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing, empowering these sectors to build customized applications using the new technology. Notably, several prominent organizations such as Highspot, Twilio, Ryanair, and Lonely Planet have already signed on as early adopters of the innovation center, Amazon said.
The primary objective of this initiative is to bolster Amazon’s cloud services by encouraging clients to choose AWS for their generative AI applications. Currently, Microsoft’s Azure holds an early advantage due to its collaboration with OpenAI, the creator of the ChatGPT language model. Meanwhile, Google played a pioneering role in developing the foundational technology behind this emerging field.
Earlier this year, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) revealed its own generative AI tools. However, the announcement was met with criticism from both longstanding employees and customers who found the details to be vague, as reported by Bloomberg in May. Some clients who tested the tools gave them an “incomplete” rating, leading to speculation among industry insiders about Amazon’s motives for releasing the AI tools. Many wondered if it was a move to counter the perception of falling behind Microsoft and Google.
Amazon refuted claims that its generative AI tools were rushed or incomplete, asserting that the technology is fully prepared for customer testing and feedback.
The rise of OpenAI’s Dall-E image-generation software and the ChatGPT chatbot in the past year has triggered a race among companies to incorporate generative AI into their products and services. Recognizing the potential of this market, cloud computing giants are positioning themselves to capitalize on the trend.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh, the generative AI market, which involves AI models analyzing vast amounts of data to generate new images, texts, audio, and video, is expected to grow by an estimated 42% and reach a staggering value of $1.3 trillion by 2032.
