"The CEO of AWS, Matt Garman, Talks About Generative Artificial Intelligence, Open Source, and Service Shutdowns."

The resignation of Adam Selipsky as CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) surprised many in the tech industry. His successor, Matt Garman, is a company veteran, having started as an intern in 2005 and becoming a full-time employee in 2006, where he worked on the early AWS products. Before taking on the CEO role, Garman was Senior Vice President of Global Sales, Marketing, and Services at AWS. In a recent interview, Garman mentioned that he hasn’t made drastic changes in the organization, as the business is performing well and there’s no need for it.

Garman emphasized that it is crucial not to lose sight of the focus on startups and developers. Although AWS began by concentrating on attracting these groups, it later expanded its attention to larger companies and regulated sectors. However, Garman stresses that maintaining interest in startups and developers remains fundamental.

Another aspect the new CEO wants to address is the rapid evolution of the sector and the need to innovate constantly. He assured that customers choose AWS for its wide range of services and the security and operational performance of the platform. Garman is determined to keep up the pace of innovation, acknowledging that technology is advancing rapidly and that AWS must accelerate its own pace.

With the arrival of generative artificial intelligence, Garman stated that AWS must be at the forefront of these developments. Although there were perceptions that AWS was slow to launch generative AI tools compared to competitors like Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, Garman defended that the company has always offered successful machine learning services such as SageMaker. He also explained that AWS took a more thoughtful approach to generative AI.

The AWS team worked on Bedrock, a platform that provides access to both open and proprietary models, allowing users to combine different models. Garman anticipated that this flexibility will become a standard trend in the industry and stated that Bedrock is growing rapidly. Additionally, Garman aims to reduce the costs associated with generative AI, highlighting the next generation of its Trainium chips as part of his strategy.

Regarding competition with other tech giants, Garman indicated that AWS is focused on developing its own language models, while also leveraging third-party models. One area of interest is the innovation in "agents," which could automate processes and enhance the utility of generative AI.

During the last re:Invent conference, AWS introduced Q, an assistant powered by generative AI, with two versions: Q Developer and Q Business. Q Developer is aimed at supporting developers throughout their lifecycle, while Q Business focuses on aggregating companies' internal data.

Recently, Garman announced that AWS will shut down some services, which is uncommon for the company. This decision comes after an internal review identified underperforming services or those that had been surpassed by better alternatives.

Lastly, Garman commented on AWS's relationship with the open-source ecosystem, which has improved over time. Recently, AWS delivered its OpenSearch code to the Linux Foundation to foster closer collaboration with this community.