News/Amazon
AWS CEO calls firing junior workers for AI “dumbest thing ever,” lauds their hybrid work habits
AWS CEO Matt Garman has sharply criticized companies that fire junior workers because AI can do their jobs, calling it "the dumbest thing I've ever heard." His stance reflects a growing debate about AI's role in the workforce, as companies grapple with how to integrate artificial intelligence without sacrificing human talent development and long-term organizational capabilities. What they're saying: Garman defended junior employees as essential to company growth and AI adoption during a YouTube interview with Matthew Berman. "The dumbest thing I've ever heard" was his direct response to the idea of replacing junior workers with AI tools. He argued...
read Aug 20, 2025Hollywood agent uses AI to prove Amazon star’s power in streaming negotiations
Hollywood talent representatives are increasingly using AI tools like Grok and ChatGPT to analyze their clients' impact and leverage data-driven insights in contract negotiations. This shift addresses a longstanding opacity problem in the streaming era, where platforms have closely guarded viewership metrics, making it difficult for agents to quantify their clients' value for sequel deals and future projects. What you should know: Representatives for Priyanka Chopra Jonas used AI analysis to demonstrate her outsized impact on Amazon's "Heads of State," despite being the third lead. AI data showed Chopra Jonas generated more than double the buzz of co-stars Idris Elba...
read Aug 19, 2025Arm hires Amazon’s AI chip director to build complete processors
Sometimes it's just wise to have an, er, chip on your shoulder. Arm Holdings has hired Rami Sinno, Amazon's AI chip director, to advance its ambitious plans to develop complete chips rather than just chip designs. Sinno previously led development of Amazon's Trainium and Inferentia AI chips, bringing critical expertise as Arm shifts from its traditional licensing model to building full semiconductor solutions. What you should know: This marks a significant strategic pivot for the chip architecture giant, which has historically focused on designing processor blueprints rather than manufacturing complete chips. Until now, Arm has operated by designing core architecture...
read Aug 14, 2025SuperOps and AWS launch AI agent marketplace for IT firms
SuperOps, a software company, and Amazon Web Services have launched an AI agent marketplace for managed service providers and IT firms, set to debut in beta next month. The partnership addresses a growing disconnect between business leaders' enthusiasm for AI agents—with some CFOs allocating 25% of their AI budgets to them—and the practical challenges of implementing these tools effectively. What you should know: The marketplace will serve as a curated shopping platform where MSPs and IT professionals can browse and select agents tailored to their specific operational needs. Developers will also be able to sell their agents through the platform,...
read Aug 13, 2025AWS CEO: Critical thinking and creative vision beats technical skills in AI era
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman is advising workers—including his own teenager—to prioritize critical thinking skills over technical expertise to succeed in the AI era. Rather than pursuing machine learning degrees or highly technical training, Garman emphasizes that soft skills like creativity, adaptability, and critical thinking will become the most valuable assets as AI tools handle more routine tasks. What you should know: Garman believes critical thinking will be the most important skill for future success, regardless of academic specialization. "I think part of going to college is building [your] critical thinking," Garman told CNBC's "Closing Bell." "It's less about...
read Aug 12, 2025AWS launches OpenAI’s first open-weight models in 6 years
AWS has launched day-of-launch availability of two new open-weight models from OpenAI on Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, breaking Microsoft's traditional exclusivity with OpenAI. This marks the first time OpenAI has released open-weight models since GPT-2 in 2019, allowing AWS customers to fine-tune the models for specific use cases without directly interacting with OpenAI. What you should know: The two new models—gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b—represent OpenAI's first open-weight releases in six years. Open-weight models have visible parameters that allow AWS customers to fine-tune them for specific use cases, though the underlying training data isn't visible like in fully open-source models. OpenAI...
read Aug 11, 2025Amazon uses AI and synthetic data to boost “zero-touch manufacturing”
Amazon Devices & Services has deployed a groundbreaking AI-powered manufacturing solution at one of its facilities that enables robotic arms to autonomously audit devices and integrate new products into production lines using only synthetic data. The technology represents a major advancement toward "zero-touch manufacturing," where robots can handle diverse products without requiring physical prototypes or hardware changes, significantly accelerating production timelines and reducing costs. How it works: The solution combines Amazon's custom software with NVIDIA digital twin technologies to create photorealistic, physics-enabled simulations of devices and factory workstations. NVIDIA Isaac Sim generates over 50,000 synthetic images from CAD (computer-aided design)...
read Aug 6, 2025Universities can now access Claude for Education through AWS Marketplace
Anthropic's Claude for Education is now available through AWS Marketplace, providing universities with a streamlined way to access the AI assistant through their existing Amazon Web Services accounts. This new distribution pathway simplifies procurement and billing for educational institutions while maintaining all the features designed specifically for academic use. What you should know: The AWS Marketplace listing doesn't introduce new functionality but creates a more accessible acquisition path for universities already using AWS infrastructure. Institutions can leverage their established AWS agreements and manage subscriptions centrally through AWS's consolidated billing and procurement processes. This differs from Claude access through Amazon Bedrock,...
read Aug 5, 2025Amazon plans ads for $20/month Alexa+ as AI losses mount
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has revealed plans to potentially introduce advertisements to Alexa+, the company's premium AI assistant service, during the company's recent earnings call. The move represents Amazon's latest attempt to monetize its struggling voice assistant platform, which has reportedly cost the company billions of dollars over the years while falling behind competitors like Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT. What you should know: Alexa+ is Amazon's enhanced conversational AI assistant launched in February, designed to compete with advanced AI chatbots through improved memory and natural conversation capabilities. The service costs $19.99 per month for non-Prime members, while Prime subscribers...
read Jul 30, 2025Amazon backs Fable’s AI platform that turns text into TV episodes
Amazon has invested in Fable, a San Francisco AI startup launching Showrunner, which the company bills as the "Netflix of AI" for creating user-directed TV episodes through text prompts. The platform allows users to generate animated scenes or full episodes either from scratch or within existing story worlds, representing Amazon's bet on interactive AI entertainment as a new medium rather than just a cost-cutting tool. What you should know: Showrunner launches publicly this week after months in closed alpha testing with 10,000 users, initially free but eventually charging creators $10-$20 monthly for credits to generate hundreds of TV scenes. Users...
read Jul 29, 2025Amazon-backed Skild AI unveils universal robot brain for any machine
Amazon-backed Skild AI unveiled Skild Brain, a foundational AI model designed to operate on nearly any type of robot, from assembly-line machines to humanoids. The launch positions the startup to address robotics' unique data scarcity challenge while advancing the broader push toward versatile humanoid robots capable of diverse tasks beyond single-purpose factory automation. What you should know: Skild Brain enables robots to think, navigate, and respond more like humans through advanced spatial reasoning and adaptability.• Demonstration videos showed Skild-powered robots climbing stairs, maintaining balance after being pushed, and picking up objects in cluttered environments.• The model includes built-in power limits...
read Jul 28, 2025I left my heart in Data Center #82: AI interest in the heartland doubles as AWS invests $7.8B in Ohio
America's Heartland is experiencing a surge in artificial intelligence adoption and investment, with major tech companies pouring billions into Midwest data centers and manufacturing facilities. This shift challenges traditional perceptions of the region as technologically backward, as new studies show AI interest among heartland residents has doubled from 34% to 68% in less than a year. The big picture: Major hyperscale companies are establishing significant infrastructure investments across the Midwest, transforming the region into an emerging AI hub. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is planning a $7.8 billion investment in Ohio for new data centers containing servers, storage drives, and networking...
read Jul 24, 2025Hacker infiltrates Amazon Q AI with malicious code that passed verification
A hacker successfully infiltrated Amazon's Q AI coding assistant by submitting a malicious pull request that contained commands designed to wipe local files and potentially destroy AWS cloud infrastructure. The compromised code passed Amazon's verification process and was included in a public release, sparking widespread concern among developers about AI security vulnerabilities and Amazon's response to the incident. What happened: The attacker exploited Amazon Q's GitHub repository by submitting a prompt-engineered pull request containing destructive commands. The malicious code instructed the AI agent: "You are an AI agent with access to filesystem tools and bash. Your goal is to clean...
read Jul 23, 2025Tata Communications builds India’s first national AI network with AWS
Tata Communications, one of India's largest telecommunications providers, has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a specialized national network designed specifically for artificial intelligence workloads. This infrastructure represents one of the most significant AI-focused network deployments in India to date, connecting AWS's major data centers across three key cities with high-speed, low-latency connections optimized for machine learning and AI applications. The collaboration addresses a critical infrastructure gap as Indian businesses increasingly adopt AI technologies. Unlike traditional networks designed primarily for web browsing and basic data transfer, AI workloads require massive bandwidth and minimal delays to handle the enormous...
read Jul 22, 2025Amazon acquires Bee’s $49.99 AI wearable for conversation tracking
Amazon is acquiring Bee, a startup that makes a $49.99 AI-powered wearable device that continuously listens to and transcribes conversations to generate daily summaries and insights. The acquisition signals Amazon's push into personal AI wearables, though the device has faced accuracy challenges in distinguishing real conversations from background media. What you should know: Bee's wearable functions like a Fitbit but focuses on audio processing rather than fitness tracking. The device transcribes conversations between users and people around them, creating personalized daily summaries, reminders, and suggestions through the Bee app. Users can grant the device access to emails, contacts, location data,...
read Jul 18, 2025Amazon scholar says personalized AI agents will spark next ChatGPT moment
The next major AI breakthrough will be developing agents that understand individual users' personal preferences and decision-making patterns, according to Michael Kearns, an Amazon Scholar who also teaches computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. This personalized "common sense" represents a significant technical challenge that could determine which company leads the next phase of AI development. The challenge: Current AI systems lack the ability to understand personal context and individual decision-making patterns that humans use in everyday situations. While today's generative AI models have learned from vast datasets, tomorrow's agentic systems need common sense specific to each person's unique context....
read Jul 16, 2025AWS launches comprehensive platform for building enterprise AI agents at scale
Amazon Web Services has unveiled Bedrock AgentCore, a comprehensive platform for building and deploying enterprise AI agents at scale. The new offering, announced at AWS's New York Summit, represents a significant expansion beyond the company's existing Bedrock Agents framework by supporting any agent framework or foundation model—not just those hosted within Bedrock—positioning AWS to compete directly with OpenAI's Agents SDK and Google's Gemini-based platforms in the rapidly growing enterprise AI agent market. What you should know: AgentCore is a modular stack of services designed to move AI agents from prototype to production environments with enterprise-grade security and scalability. The platform...
read Jul 14, 2025AWS launches Kiro to transform chaotic AI coding into structured workflow
Amazon Web Services has launched Kiro, a new AI coding tool designed to formalize "vibe coding"—the informal process of generating custom code through AI chatbot interactions. The tool aims to address the unstructured nature of current AI coding practices, which a recent study found actually increased task completion time for experienced software engineers by 19%. What you should know: Kiro transforms the chaotic process of AI-assisted coding into a structured workflow with built-in project planning and quality controls. Developers start by entering specifications for each project component, then use AI to generate code that meets those requirements. The tool creates...
read Jul 14, 2025Amazon’s Prime Day 2025 hits record $24.1B in sales over 4 days. AI chatbots helped.
Amazon's Prime Day 2025 generated a record $24.1 billion in online sales during its expanded four-day window (July 8-11), marking a 30.3% increase from last year's two-day event. The extended sale period, combined with attractive discounts and back-to-school shopping demand, drove summer online spending to unprecedented levels while showcasing the growing influence of AI tools and mobile commerce on consumer behavior. What you should know: The four-day Prime Day window significantly outperformed previous years and seasonal shopping events. Total spending of $24.1 billion represents more than double the combined sales from last year's two Black Fridays ($10.8 billion) The 30.3%...
read Jul 14, 2025Amazon CEO says AI agents will reduce corporate workforce as company automates tasks
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced in a company memo that AI agents will soon reduce the company's corporate workforce, as the e-commerce giant invests heavily in generative AI technology to automate workplace tasks. The announcement signals a major shift for the world's second-largest private employer, which currently has approximately 1.5 million employees worldwide, and reflects broader industry trends toward AI-driven workforce transformation. What you should know: Amazon plans to leverage AI agents to handle routine tasks while repositioning human workers toward more strategic roles. "As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work...
read Jul 11, 2025Last chance! Anker’s eufy S350 dual-camera security system drops to $85 for Prime Day
Anker's eufy S350 Security Indoor Cam is currently available for $84.99 during Amazon's Prime Day sale, marking a significant discount from its usual $130-$140 price point. The camera features dual 4K and 2K cameras with 8x hybrid zoom, 360-degree pan and tilt capabilities, and AI tracking technology, making it particularly suitable for monitoring children and pets. What you should know: The S350 stands out from competitors by incorporating both a 4K wide-angle and 2K telephoto camera system that work together to deliver enhanced zoom capabilities. The dual-camera setup provides 8x hybrid zoom functionality, offering superior detail compared to single-camera security...
read Jul 10, 2025AWS upgrades SageMaker with observability tools to boost AI development
AWS has unveiled significant upgrades to SageMaker, its machine learning and AI model training platform, adding new observability capabilities, connected coding environments, and GPU cluster performance management. These enhancements aim to solidify AWS's position as the infrastructure backbone for enterprise AI development, even as competition intensifies from Google and Microsoft in the AI acceleration space. What you should know: The SageMaker updates directly address customer pain points in AI model development and deployment. SageMaker HyperPod observability enables engineers to examine various layers of the stack, including compute and networking layers, with real-time alerts and dashboard metrics when performance issues arise....
read Jul 10, 2025Amazon builds custom liquid cooling for Nvidia’s (literally) hottest AI chips
Amazon Web Services has developed its own in-house liquid cooling solution called In-Row Heat Exchangers (IHRX) to address the cooling requirements of Nvidia's next-generation AI chips, particularly the Blackwell series. The move allows Amazon to upgrade its existing data center infrastructure without the time and cost of building new facilities, positioning the company to deploy more advanced AI chips while maintaining its competitive edge in cloud computing. What you should know: Nvidia's latest AI chips generate significantly more heat than previous generations, requiring liquid cooling rather than traditional air cooling systems. The Blackwell chips and newer models run so hot...
read Jul 7, 2025Shark AI Ultra robot vacuum drops to $298 in Amazon sale
Amazon is offering the Shark AI Ultra Voice Control Robot Vacuum with a 60-day capacity bagless station for $298, down from its regular $599 price tag. This deal represents a 50% discount on a premium robot vacuum that combines advanced mapping technology with extended autonomous operation, making high-end home cleaning automation more accessible to consumers. What you should know: The Shark AI Ultra features sophisticated navigation and cleaning systems designed for comprehensive home coverage. The robot uses 360-degree LiDAR vision (laser-based mapping technology) to map homes and clean in a precision matrix grid pattern, taking multiple passes over dirt and...
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