As we’ve surpassed the halfway mark, we’ve witnessed an impressive influx of innovative companies and offerings debut daily this week, marking a notable milestone in our journey. If you’re not up-to-date on the keynotes from re:Invent, we recommend reviewing your team’s blog posts summarizing each keynote.
To conclude our Wednesday bulletins, a keynote was presented by Dr. Ruba Borno, Vice President of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Worldwide Channels and Alliances. The keynote focused on the synergies between AWS and its partners, exploring how together they can deliver value to their joint customers. Throughout the keynote, we didn’t just hear about new announcements; instead, there were numerous compelling customer success stories and testimonials from partnerships between AWS, its partners, and clients.
The keynote aimed to empower prospects to turn the seemingly impossible into a possibility by partnering with an expert AWS Associate.
Let’s dive into some of the latest releases within the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Associate realm.
AWS Buyer Engagement Incentive
A wide range of novel options and opportunities still need to transition to Amazon Web Services (AWS). This software is designed to handle these alternatives more effectively. The AWS Buyer Engagement Incentive program supports AWS Partners in engaging with companies that are new to AWS or just beginning their cloud journey, fostering a deeper understanding of our offerings and driving customer acquisition.
Notably, this approach not only offsets the costs and investments across each stage of the sales cycle but also provides a straightforward framework for Partners to focus on the upfront buyer workload, more effectively drive growth and spending from new AWS customers, and scale over time.
While worth noting that this incentive isn’t a fresh revelation at re:Invert, its relatively recent launch in the past year still warrants blog coverage. Since its launch, Companions has successfully brought to market a remarkable 87% of all pipeline opportunities that were deemed viable for development.
The AWS Companion’s Center for Generative Artificial Intelligence Excellence
The pace of innovation in the realm of generative AI has been breathtakingly rapid. Staying abreast of the rapid advancements in these tools can be challenging. On top of that, you may have a significant demand from potential clients seeking to revamp their businesses by integrating generative AI capabilities into their proprietary technology infrastructure?
AWS aims to establish the Generative AI Center of Excellence for its Partners, enabling them to stay ahead of the curve in generative AI development and better meet customer needs by leveraging cutting-edge technologies and best practices. The platform provides a comprehensive suite of technical and non-technical enablement tools, including content materials, coaching sessions, buyer use case examples, collaborative data-sharing forums, and best practice guidelines.
With a track record of excellence, AWS companions are able to:
- Become well-versed in a range of generative AI options.
- Connect with influential thought leaders within the Amazon Associates community to explore innovative applications of generative artificial intelligence.
- Construe purposes that surpass optimization’s boundaries and encompass concerns such as equity, privacy, and security?
- Harnessing data-backed intelligence and innovative tools accelerates customers’ transformative AI experiences.
Accenture and AWS Expanded Partnership
As a pioneer in embracing cutting-edge Amazon Web Services (AWS) capabilities, Accenture has consistently demonstrated its commitment to innovation and staying ahead of the curve. When Amazon CodeWhisperer debuted, Accenture leveraged its expertise, subsequently experiencing a 30% boost in the efficiency of their development endeavors.
Accenture announces plans to integrate Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into its own automation platforms. Accenture has committed to upskilling 50,000 professionals in AWS AI technologies, mirroring its efforts with Amazon’s Q and CodeWhisperer initiatives.
Accenture joins a distinguished group of organizations contributing to the AWS Generative AI core of excellence for partners, alongside trailblazers like Anthropic, NVIDIA, and others.
Furthermore, Accenture features a dedicated Center for High-Impact Artificial Intelligence, offering accelerators, best-practice frameworks, and hands-on training to help clients fully leverage the value of Amazon SageMaker and other AWS artificial intelligence services.
The C3 Generative AI market version on AWS is a highly advanced and innovative tool that enables businesses to build sophisticated language models with ease. This powerful technology leverages the latest advancements in natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and deep learning to generate human-like text, automate content creation, and improve customer engagement.
By integrating C3 Generative AI into their existing workflows, organizations can streamline content production, reduce costs, and increase productivity. The platform’s ability to learn from large datasets and adapt to changing trends ensures that the generated content remains relevant and effective in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.
Additionally, C3 Generative AI on AWS offers unparalleled scalability and reliability, allowing businesses to deploy complex models with ease and confidence. With this powerful tool, companies can unlock new revenue streams, enhance customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge in their respective industries. 
C3 AI has launched its C3 Generative AI offering on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace. In this no-code environment, users can seamlessly access a powerful, self-serve generative AI tool designed to drive meaningful outcomes. Using this innovative tool, customers can gain a deeper understanding of their existing knowledge, empowering them to pose thoughtful inquiries within mere minutes of setup.
Notably, the model’s purposefulness extends beyond its primary objective, effectively addressing some common problems that large language models often encounter. C3 AI maintains that its technology does not produce hallucinations, poses no cybersecurity threats, and raises no intellectual property legal concerns.
If you’re interested in using this software, simply scan the QR code provided in the image above to access the private preview.
ServiceNow and AWS Expanded Partnership
ServiceNow and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have collaborated on innovative strategies to integrate AWS’ extensive reach, expertise, and scalability with ServiceNow’s cutting-edge platform for digital transformation.
By early 2024, ServiceNow is expected to debut its comprehensive software solution as a cloud-based Service (SaaS) on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace.
AWS and ServiceNow are collaborating to develop and launch industry-specific AI-powered tools, further expanding their offerings in the AWS Marketplace. Two major corporations are currently collaborating on a supply chain optimization initiative by integrating Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Supply Chain management platform with ServiceNow to further enhance the efficiency of their supply chain operations.
New AWS Associate Competencies
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Competency Associate Programme offers customers a way to verify that AWS Partners possess the necessary skills and technical expertise to support clients in a specific domain, thereby enabling them to achieve their business objectives with confidence. AWS has expanded its competency offerings by introducing three new areas of specialization within the AWS Competency program.
- AWS Resilience Competency partners help customers strengthen the availability and durability of their applications.
- Cyber insurance coverage competency partners facilitate prospect discovery of policies from leading insurers. AWS prospects receive a customised quote for their desired cyber insurance coverage within two business days.
- Associates are equipped with constructed-in competency options, providing a seamless infrastructure-as-code solution for deploying, configuring, and integrating associate software with foundational Amazon Web Services (AWS) capabilities.
AWS Market SaaS Fast Launch
AWS introduces SaaS Fast Launch, a game-changing feature that empowers customers to quickly set up, deploy, and bring SaaS products to market on Amazon Web Services. Through a combination of CloudFormation templates, carefully crafted by software vendors in collaboration with AWS, these applications are rigorously validated to ensure seamless integration while adhering to the latest security standards.
In the AWS Marketplace, you can discover SaaS products featuring this capability by searching for the “Fast Launch” tag in their product descriptions. Upon clicking the Fast Launch option for your chosen product, you’ll effortlessly deploy the software. While offering rapid deployment and scalability, carefully monitor for the Fast Launch tag in the AWS Marketplace.
AWS Market APIs for Sellers
With the introduction of AWS Marketplace APIs for Sellers, you can seamlessly enable AWS Marketplace access through your existing applications. By leveraging your existing goals, you can seamlessly integrate AWS Marketplace products, provisioning, resale permissions, and agreement workflows directly within your own processes. By streamlining processes, you’ll increase associate effectiveness and potentially stimulate more market-driven transactions through your location. This characteristic is widely available and currently usable.
Pricing Changes to AWS Market
AWS is slashing prices for AWS Marketplace listings, effective January 2024. A flat 3% commission fee structure. In certain situations, it may actually decline.
The revised text reads:
Updates to our pricing model have been implemented as follows:
- For gifts of less than $1 million, it’s now a 3% payment.
- For deals ranging from $1 million to $10 million, the commission rate is now 2%.
- Effective for personal gifts exceeding $10 million, the applicable payment rate is now 1.5%.
- For recurring subscription fees applicable to personal software programs and online learning resources, the rate is now set at a competitive 1.5%.
AWS and Salesforce Partnership Growth
AWS and Salesforce have expanded their partnership, enabling customers to capitalize on the combined value of both platforms.
As part of the announcement, the businesses unveiled the following information:
- Salesforce is poised to offer its suite of products, including Knowledge Cloud, Service Cloud, Heroku, Tableau, and Mulesoft, on the AWS Marketplace, along with other similar merchandise. Strategic product support initiatives are being rolled out in 2024 to further enhance customer experience.
- AWS and Salesforce have collaborated to transform Knowledge Cloud into a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering. This feature enables prospects to leverage AWS services to process and analyze data stored in Amazon S3.
AWS Associate Central Enhancements
Recently, Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced its latest Associate certification, focusing on the AWS Central expertise. The latest upgrades tailor-made the expertise to suit both AWS Associates and their organization’s specific roles. This comprises automated prescriptive guidance featuring tailored duties and optimized next steps designed specifically for the Associate.
AWS is now offering an integrated experience for AWS Companions who have enrolled in the software development path, seamlessly bridging AWS Associate Certification and AWS Marketplace. AWS companions can easily create AWS Marketplace listings directly from the AWS Associates Central portal. By integrating your AWS Associate Central account with your AWS Marketplace seller account, you gain the ability to view AWS Marketplace analytics within your Associate Central Analytics dashboard.
The AWS and its partners have recently introduced a novel co-selling capability through APN Buyer Engagements (ACE), tailored specifically to meet the unique needs of both the AWS Associate and their co-sell requirements.
This feature enables Companions to more effectively maintain pipeline hygiene by prioritizing alternative solutions when AWS sales support is needed, providing insights on new online engagement opportunities, and standardizing the data collected through the Associate referral and AWS referral processes.
The Additional, Amazon Connect’s Associate ACE pipeline is now seamlessly integrated with AWS Marketplace Personalized Presentations, providing real-time sales insights and empowering users to unlock new development opportunities more efficiently.
The AWS Associate CRM connector now seamlessly integrates with the AWS Marketplace, providing a streamlined way to manage customer relationships and streamline business processes.
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Associate CRM Connector has been enhanced to enable AWS Marketplace sellers to efficiently manage and distribute private offers and resale authorizations. The CRM Connector also enables AWS Associate Central’s ACE Pipeline Supervisor to leverage additional features, including the ability to view a summary of private market offers on AWS Marketplace.
The AWS Associate CRM Connector is available for free on the Salesforce AppExchange.
AWS Sustainability Objectives
In conclusion, our keynote speaker wrapped up their presentation with an engaging discussion on the importance of sustainable practices. AWS has long been committed to sustainability, aiming to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, reduce water usage by 2030, and power all operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, a goal it plans to achieve in just five years.
Sustainability targets are no longer just a secondary consideration for AWS; they’ve become increasingly crucial for customers as well. One-third of prospects explicitly state that corporate sustainability is their primary business priority. To meet this customer’s requirements, AWS Partners have developed more than 1,000 sustainable solutions, which are now available in both the AWS Options Library and AWS Marketplace.
Ultimately, AWS has prompted its partners, known as AWS Companions, to sign the Climate Pledge. More than 450 corporations have already joined, with numbers expected to continue growing.
That concludes our journey through the keynote, bringing all aspects together in a cohesive package. AWS’s Associate region has witnessed rapid innovation over the past year. By streamlining these improvements, we aim to significantly simplify the daily experiences of AWS Companions. Enjoy the rest of your week!
