AWS Creates New Group Focused on Agentic AI
Amazon has formed a new group focused on developing agentic AI within its Amazon Web Services division, according to Reuters.
In an email to staff seen by Reuters, AWS CEO Matt Garman said agentic AI “has the potential to be the next multi-billion business for AWS”.
AWS executive Swami Sivasubramanian, who has been at the company for over three years in various senior AI roles, will reportedly lead the new group – as of March 2025, his title on LinkedIn is VP, AWS Agentic AI.
Unlocking innovation with AI Agents
Unlike passive AI, which responds to commands, agentic AI actively pursues goals by perceiving its environment, reasoning and taking action while adapting as needed.
It powers greater automation and efficiency by performing tasks with minimal oversight.
Garman wrote: “We have the opportunity to help our customers innovate even faster and unlock more possibilities and I firmly believe that AI agents are core to this next wave of innovation.”
In a post on LinkedIn, Swami hinted at the company’s shift towards developing agentic AI technology.
He said: “Agentic AI systems are the next frontier in computing and the future of this technology will be built on the foundation we’ve created at AWS on top of our core building blocks of compute, storage, databases and AI.”
Swami explained how agentic AI can “extend far beyond today’s chatbots and will drive efficiency like we haven’t seen before”.
He pointed to examples including the orchestration of complex workflows and problem solving with human-like reasoning, and writing and debugging code more effectively. It also allows businesses to automate complex decision making processes.
“I’m excited about leading a new organisation focused on advancing the power of agents and look forward to bringing the latest innovation into the hands of our customers,” Swami explained.
Building on Amazon’s AI success
Amazon’s existing work in AI spans several core areas, most notably with Alexa, its voice assistance that is constantly evolving with improved natural language processing.
On Wednesday 26 January, the company touted some of its latest capabilities announcing Alexa+, an updated version of its Alexa voice assistant embedded with generative AI (Gen AI).
“Alexa+ is designed to take action and is able to orchestrate across tens of thousands of services and devices—which, to our knowledge, has never been done at this scale,” said Panos Panay, SVP of Devices & Services at Amazon.
“To achieve this, we created a concept called “experts”—groups of systems, capabilities, APIs and instructions that accomplish specific types of tasks for customers.”
Alexa+ introduced agentic capabilities, enabling it to navigate the internet in a self-directed way to complete tasks on behalf of users.
As a result, the new Alexa is more personalised, is able to manage and protect the home in a better way and is proactive in its ability to engage with users.
Tech industry focuses on agentic AI
Amazon’s reported move follows growing industry interest in agentic AI development and adoption, with the technology becoming a central focus for major tech companies.
Microsoft has been expanding its Copilot platform to include agentic functionalities, most recently launching two new AI-powered agents for sales-specific applications designed to improve workflows and reduce administrative tasks.
These integrate with the company’s 365 Copilot platform and allow users to interact with applications using natural language commands and bring greater automation to sales-related tasks.
As an example, Sales Agent automatically converts sales contacts into qualified leads.
It also works to continuously expand sales pipelines by researching prospects, automatically scheduling meetings and complete sales transactions without human intervention.
Discussing the launch, Chief Marketing Officer at AI at Work at Microsoft, Jared Spataro says: "Our ambition is to empower every employee with a Copilot and transform every business process with agents.
“Today, we're announcing two new agents that apply this ambition to sales – the revenue engine for every business – that can be used right in the flow of work."
Google has also been driving development in the agentic era of AI through its Gemini agentic AI models, designed with advanced reasoning and planning capabilities.
In February 2025, the company announced the latest version, Gemini 2.0 was generally available for use including greater multimodality and enhanced performance.
In late 2024 Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai referenced its focus on agentic AI development, saying: “Over the last year, we have been investing in developing more agentic models, meaning they can understand more about the world around you, think multiple steps ahead and take action on your behalf, with your supervision."
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