While Amazon has been investing $8 billion into the artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic, which started the chatbot Claude, it’s been quietly building its own models to compete with it and OpenAI’s Dall-E and Sora.
Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy announced six new AI foundation models at Amazon Web Services'annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.
“Have at it, giddy up.” Jassy said to finalise the reveal of six new models to the market, called Amazon Nova.
The new products included an image generation model called Amazon Nova Canvas, and a video generation model, Amazon Nova Reel, which both had content moderation built in.
The video model would begin generating 6-second-long videos and grow to make 2-minute videos within months, Jassy said.
The models would all be about 75% cheaper than competitor models available on Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Bedrock platform, he said.
AWS's annual re:Invent conference attracted 60,000 visitors to Las Vegas in December, 2024.
Five of the models were available immediately but its most complex model, Amazon Nova Premier, was still in development and would be released in 2025.
Currently, AWS allowed customers to use any AI model available on Bedrock, including its existing model Amazon Q and competitor models from Meta’s Llama, Mistral AI and Anthropic’s Claude.
“We think we’ve added some pretty interesting models.” Jassy said.
“But you can use them in any combination you want.
“We will give you that choice and selection.”
Jassy said AWS would now focus on developing the second generation of these AI models, while also building more.
It was working on a speech-to-speech model and a model that would allow any mode of input and produce any mode of output - what he called an any-to-any model.
“So you’ll be able to input text, speech, images or video and output text, speech, images or video.
“This is the future of how frontier models are going to built and be consumed.”
AWS doubled its investment in AI developer Anthropic this year to US$8 billion - Jassy alluded to those relationships remaining intact, despite its increased competitiveness.
“We are going to give you the broadest and best functionality you can find anywhere.
“It’s going to mean choice.”
Early days like ‘Cloud’
AWS chief executive Matt Garman said it was still the early days of generative artificial intelligence applications.
“Generative AI has the potential to transform every single industry, every single company out there.” Garman said at re:Invent.
However, demand for data storage had already surged, as enterprises looked to adopt AI.
“If every application needs compute ... Of course every application needs storage, because that’s where your data lives.”
AWS CEO Matt Garman.
AWS launched its first storage service in 2006, meaning it had been leading the global shift to moving information into external data centres, aka “the cloud”, for 18 years.
A decade ago, AWS had fewer than 100 customers storing more than a petabyte of data, now it had thousands of customers storing that much data.
Some large customers, such as JP Morgan Chase, were storing an exabyte of data.
In recent years, AWS' AI efforts had seen it launch its own machine-learning computer chips and partner with Nvidia.
What does it mean for NZ?
AWS' managing director for Australia and New Zealand Rianne van Veldhuizen said the new Nova models would be available to customers in New Zealand and Australia.
She said the technology company built the new Nova models because customers were asking for them.
“Our customers consistently tell us they want increased model choice and more options that are also cost effective.
Amazon Web Services managing director for Australia and New Zealand Rianne van Veldhuizen.
“That’s why we are adding Amazon Nova models to what is already the largest selection of Gen[erative] AI models available in Amazon Bedrock.
“Today’s news is big but it’s just day one, and we’re in it for the long term.
“We believe Amazon is in the best position to democratise the benefits of generative AI to every business globally.”
She said AWS' announcement was a significant leap forward in its AI journey.
“Our new Amazon Nova models represent an exciting opportunity for local organisations to harness the power of generative AI to experiment, innovate, and easily scale.”
Stay tuned for more details on Amazon’s AI strategy on Markets with Madison next week.
Madison Reidy is host and executive producer of the NZ Herald’s investment show Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.
Madison travelled to re:Invent in Las Vegas courtesy of Amazon Web Services.
