In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box this week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy doubled down on the company’s massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI), calling it a transformative force that will reshape virtually every customer experience.
“I do think that AI is going to transform every customer experience that we know,” Jassy stated emphatically. His bold proclamation underscores Amazon’s strategic shift to position itself at the forefront of the AI revolution sweeping across industries.
Jassy outlined three key areas where Amazon is staking its claim in the AI arena.
“Think of it as the lowest layer are for people building their own large language models. Compute to train the model and run the inferences,” he said. “What matters in that is the chip.”
To that end, Amazon has developed specialized AI chips for training large language models and running AI inferences more efficiently.
“We built a training chip an an inference chip. So a lot of the training and predictions will be done on those chips,” said Jassy.
The second layer Jassy described is Bedrock, Amazon’s AI service that allows customers to leverage pre-built large language models and customize them.
“It is the easiest way to build a high quality AI application,” he claimed.
However, Jassy acknowledged that a “vast majority” of AI applications will still be built by third parties, highlighting the third layer of Amazon’s AI strategy — providing choice and flexibility to customers through partnerships with other AI companies like Anthropic and Cohere.
“Customers want choice. They want different model types for different applications and use cases,” he noted.
When pressed on the importance of Amazon developing its own flagship large language model like Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s GPT models, Jassy remained pragmatic: “This is going to transform virtually every experience we know as a gigantic space and there are a lot of successful players in it.”
He touted Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic, stating: “Cloud Three is the best model on the planet right now with the best performance. And it runs best on top of AWS. So our customers are very excited about that.”
Yet Jassy also affirmed Amazon’s deep expertise in building its own AI models, suggesting the company’s large language model called Olympus could eventually rival the industry leaders.
“We have a lot of experience building models at the company,” he said. “We have been doing it for years and years.”
As the AI revolution charges forward, Amazon appears determined to cover all bases — developing its own cutting-edge AI hardware and models while embracing an open ecosystem of partnerships. With Jassy’s laser focus on transforming customer experiences through AI, Amazon is positioning itself as a formidable force in this rapidly evolving landscape.
Featured image: Credit: CNBC
