I remember those early re:Invent days so well: AWS CTO Werner Vogels in his punk rock t-shirts, speaking directly to the developers. It was a conference built for builders. There was an atmosphere of experimentation and possibility. For the first few years, the builder-first spirit defined AWS’s culture.
As the event grew, then-AWS CEO Andy Jassy began appealing more to the enterprise world in his keynotes, and another tone emerged. C-levels joined the builders in the spotlight, and the messaging became more polished to address decision-makers as a primary audience.
Now, heading into re:Invent 2025, AWS is deeply engaged in the generative AI wave. The company is serving as the backbone and foundation for innovation.
With no ChatGPT-style AWS consumer product on the market yet, some wonder if AWS is missing this shift, but I don’t think that’s the case. Here’s why.
Scalability Like We’ve Never Seen Before
AWS has doubled down on its identity as the infrastructure provider. With its $38 billion OpenAI deal, the cloud giant has become the backend for one of the world’s most widely used AI platforms (even though Microsoft, as OpenAI’s key strategic investor, had seemed the obvious choice).
This creates a layered dynamic: AWS is powering OpenAI’s explosive growth while simultaneously building its own GenAI ecosystem. It’s a classic “co-petition” play, collaborating on infrastructure while competing at the platform level.
As I know Amazon, the fact that they released this news just ahead of AWS re:Invent 2025 means that we’ll hopefully be seeing a public case study showing how this partnership actually works at scale. If AWS puts this partnership on stage, it could be the most scalable case the tech world has ever seen, a true benchmark for what the cloud can deliver.
Update: While writing these lines, Amazon announced a new $6.2 billion initiative in AI, Project Prometheus. According to press releases, this venture aims to put Amazon at the forefront of the next wave of AI by focusing on models that learn from the physical world, not just internet-based text that most GenAI models rely on today. If you want to understand where AI may be heading, this shift is worth watching.
AWS Builds for Builders
AWS is still investing heavily in builders. Tools like Amazon CodeWhisperer deliver real-time code suggestions directly in the IDE. Amazon Q Developer brings agent-driven capabilities to the coding workflow: Think automated documentation, code reviews, and even legacy migrations. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore lets teams deploy and manage AI agents at runtime. It’s a bottom-up strategy that speaks directly to developers.
Meanwhile, AWS has grown its foundation model and GenAI portfolio:
- The Amazon Nova model family (Nova Micro, Nova Pro, and more) covers everything from summarization to multimodal generation.
- On the business side, Amazon Q brings a conversational interface into tools like QuickSight and internal workflows.
- At the infrastructure layer, Amazon Bedrock connects it all, making it easy to access models from AWS and third parties.
With Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Amazon Q Developer, and Amazon CodeWhisperer, AWS is a key player in GenAI, especially for enterprises and developers. However, AWS has yet to introduce a widely adopted consumer-facing GenAI product, so its strengths remain most visible within enterprise teams.
While developer adoption is a major foundation, shaping the broader GenAI narrative. increasingly means making AI accessible to all users, not just builders. This is an area where AWS still has room to grow.
AWS’s GenAI Perception
Despite significant investment and technical strength, AWS isn’t usually the first name that comes up in GenAI discussions. The capabilities are there, but the broader recognition in the generative AI conversation is still building.
Just scroll through the latest discussions on the official /r/aws subreddit. In this popular thread, Is there an AI strategy for AWS? Customers are confused, users share a mix of perspectives about AWS’s direction in AI. While many acknowledge AWS’s strengths in infrastructure, some express a desire for a clearer vision and more user-facing GenAI products.
Today, when people talk about generative AI, it’s ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and LLaMA that often come up first. These solutions are visible in everyday workflows and conversations. AWS isn’t always part of that initial mix; not because the technology is lacking, but because AWS has focused its GenAI offerings primarily on enterprise users so far.
The GenAI Race Is Still Wide Open
For anyone trying to keep up with the pace of change in GenAI, it feels almost impossible to stay current. The market seems saturated, with new tools, new models, and new releases every week. But here’s the thing: despite OpenAI’s lead, the race is still wide open. Humans still set the pace, and it will take time (though less than in previous tech cycles) for the market to mature and settle, if it ever does.
Even now, AWS has plenty of opportunities. GenAI is reaching far beyond just developers. Today’s users include marketers, finance, HR, and operations teams.
Successful GenAI-based product vendors are enabling hyper-personalization and verticalization, building solutions tailored for specific industries and business needs. That’s where I see AWS’s biggest growth potential: delivering consumer-like, intuitive GenAI experiences for non-technical business users, while maintaining its strong B2B foundation.
AWS is beginning to expand into these new domains, offering agent-driven workflows that increasingly look and feel like intuitive apps, not just backend tools.
While these aren’t full consumer products yet, they reflect AWS’s understanding of what GenAI adoption will require at scale. I believe that AWS will continue to connect the dots by linking infrastructure, models, role-based, and vertical solutions, and will bring GenAI to a broader range of users and drive bottom-up adoption beyond just enterprise R&D teams.
Speed is key here, and AWS has already proven itself to be the fastest large startup in the B2B tech world.
What I’m Watching for at re:Invent 2025, and Beyond
As always, re:Invent is the place to listen closely. Here’s what I’ll be watching for at AWS re:Invent 2025:
- A public case study on the OpenAI partnership, showcasing how AWS powers GenAI at scale and what it reveals about infrastructure at scale
- Signs that AWS is moving toward a broader GenAI experience, something accessible to business users, not just developers
- Clear signals of vertical focus in GenAI, especially in marketing, finance, and HR, where adoption is already picking up speed
Immediately after re:Invent, I’ll be attending the AWS Analyst Summit. If you’re around, look for the red lanyard; I’m always happy to connect. I’ll be especially interested in learning more about vertical GenAI products; that’s where I believe the most impactful change is happening now.
Once Vegas wraps up, I’m off to Austin for CyberMarketingCon. Because this conversation is just getting started.
If you’d like to exchange AWS and GenAI insights on the re:Invent expo floor (or in Austin) or learn how to generate credible AWS content with GenAI, let’s connect.
