Amazon is developing its own Generative AI for Amazon Web Services (AWS), calling it, of all things, Q. This effort is likely in response to Microsoft's GPT-driven Copilot. AWS is currently the leading Cloud developer market with about 32% market share vs. Microsoft's Azure at 22%. Google Cloud is trailing at 11%, according to statista. If Q turns out to be any good, I'll give you three guesses who will dominate Cloud services by an even wider margin, and the first four don't count.
Q is not a one-size-fits-all AI. Q employs different AI models under the hood, including Amazon’s Titan large language model and other LLMs built by Anthropic and Cohere. Companies using AWS can choose the model most appropriate for answering a given question or set of business and programming problems.
But here's the most promising and simultaneously frightening thing about Q (and any other AI assistants for web services): To get the most out of it, you feed it your company's code, data and data sources, and business intelligence, including applications your business uses from Google, Microsoft, Slack, etc. Q has access to allegedly more than 40 applications and services available at full launch.
Why frightening? Let me tell you a little story about a man named Bill (any similarity between the name Bill and actual historical person is purely coincidental). His big company would tempt small innovative companies with a potential promise of being bought for a hefty price. Of course, his big company would have to get detailed analysis of the small company's code and algorithms, testing strategies, etc. It's all due-diligence, of course. And then the big company would simultaneously withdraw its interest in buying said small company while coincidentally unveiling a strikingly similar product for sale.
To get the most out of Q, you give it the keys to your entire business. Now, Amazon is not Bill, and has no similar history as far as I know. So, I'm not saying Amazon is going to "appropriate" your secrets for its own benefit when you use Q on AWS, but I would recommend you use caution before you invest in any Cloud services that rely on your intellectual property for the AI to provide you with the most benefit. Having said that, I'm looking forward to playing with Q, if I can get the chance.
Resources
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-q-a-new-generative-ai-powered-assistant-preview/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/upgrade-your-java-applications-with-amazon-q-code-transformation-preview/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/improve-developer-productivity-with-generative-ai-powered-amazon-q-in-amazon-codecatalyst-preview/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-q-brings-generative-ai-powered-assistance-to-it-pros-and-developers-preview/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-q-in-quicksight-uses-generative-ai-assistance-for-quicker-easier-data-insights-preview/
