AWS CEO Matt Garman Aims to Reinforce Amazon’s Leadership in Cloud Technology Amidst the AI Revolution

You might assume that Amazon’s most significant move in the AI landscape was its $8 billion investment in Anthropic. However, AWS has also been developing its own foundational models, innovative chips, extensive data centers, and agents designed to retain enterprise customers within its ecosystem. The company is confident that these features will provide it with a competitive advantage as various businesses begin to implement AI technologies.

WIRED had a conversation with AWS CEO Matt Garman prior to the company’s annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, exploring his vision for AI and his strategy to maintain Amazon’s lead in the cloud market amidst fast-emerging competitors like Microsoft and Google.

Garman is convinced that AWS can offer AI as a service more affordably and reliably than its competitors. Through Bedrock, Amazon’s platform for developing AI applications, he claims customers can utilize a range of AI foundational models while enjoying the known data controls, security measures, and reliability AWS provides. If this proposition stands true, it may allow AWS to lead in the AI landscape.

“Two years ago, people were creating AI applications. Now, they are integrating AI within their applications,” Garman stated, suggesting that AI is evolving into a component of larger products rather than remaining a separate experiment. “That’s the platform we’ve established, and that’s where I believe AWS will start to excel.”

Many announcements at this year’s re:Invent reflect this direction. Amazon introduced new, cost-effective AI models in its Nova lineup; agents capable of autonomously handling software development and cybersecurity tasks; and a new solution, Forge, that enables enterprises to efficiently train AI models using their own data.

The pressure is on AWS to execute this strategy successfully. While Amazon’s cloud division thrived during the smartphone era, smaller competitors like Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure have experienced faster growth since the launch of ChatGPT. Microsoft and Google have gained traction by deeply integrating with cutting-edge AI models—the foundational technology behind ChatGPT and Gemini, respectively—drawing in enterprises eager to leverage advanced capabilities.

The rise of AWS’s competitors has prompted speculation about Amazon’s overarching AI strategy and its outlook in the coming years.

Garman mentions that he’s been hearing these concerns for quite some time, but they have diminished recently. He believes the situation is shifting, citing AWS’s unexpectedly strong performance in the third quarter as proof that his strategy is on the right track.