Amazon Web Services (AWS) wants to be the go-to marketplace for businesses looking to buy and implement AI agents.
At the annual AWS Summit in New York City on Wednesday, Amazon announced the launch of AI agents and Tools, a new virtual store within AWS Marketplace where enterprise customers can search through agents from Anthropic, IBM, Perplexity, Salesforce, and other vendors.
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Crucially, in addition to offering the agents themselves, the store also offers the various components of digital infrastructure required to deploy the agents safely and effectively, including relevant databases, third-party governance software solutions, IT support for implementation, and deployment options to ensure that the agents mesh with the various systems already running within the company.
As part of the launch, AWS has introduced a new feature -– currently available in preview — called AgentCore designed to facilitate the implementation process for new agents
“With this launch, AWS Marketplace becomes a single destination where customers can find everything needed for successful AI agent implementations,” Matt Yanchyshyn, vice president of AWS Marketplace and Partner Services, wrote in a blog post. “[This] includes not just agents themselves, but also the critical components that make agents truly valuable.”
To make it easier for customers to find the right agents and supporting software for their particular needs, AWS has also launched an AI-powered search tool within AI Agents and Tools. Powered by Amazon Bedrock, the search feature allows users to describe the functions that they’re looking to automate in natural language prompts, and the system will recommend specific agents and accompanying solutions for implementation and support.
Growing pressure
The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT starting in late 2022 prompted a surge of corporate interest in generative AI, though it quickly became clear that the technology didn’t offer any clear, practical applications for the majority of businesses, beyond, say, launching a customer service chatbot or using AI-generated video in ads.
That’s when tech developers started pushing agents, which are essentially more capable and dynamic chatbots, to enterprise customers.
The trend quickly took off, with research firm Gartner recently predicting that as much as half of all business decisions will be at least partially automated by agents by 2027. It isn’t exactly clear to what degree individual workers are currently using agents on a day-to-day basis, but their employers do seem to be eagerly onboarding the technology, driven by a wide-scale pressure not to be left behind in this latest technological wave.
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Some of the more deep-pocketed companies have opted to respond to that pressure by building their own agents, but this route is prohibitively expensive for most businesses. Buying agents presents its own problems: the technology can open up new and vexing data security risks, and merging agents with a company’s existing digital infrastructure isn’t always a straightforward process.
AWS is marketing its new virtual marketplace as an AI-powered guide for companies that feel overwhelmed by the sheer variety of agents that are suddenly available, and by the technical and legal complexities that often come with them.
AI Agents and Tools is live and accessible now via AWS Marketplace.
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