Amazon announced Tuesday the creation of a new division under its Amazon Web Services cloud unit. The group will employ specialized engineers who embed with customers to accelerate adoption of artificial intelligence software.
The company is making an initial $1 billion commitment to the effort. It plans to send teams of five to six engineers to work with clients for 45-day periods, said Francessca Vasquez, AWS vice president of frontier AI engineering and services.
Customer demand is high for assistance in applying agentic AI patterns to workflows, Vasquez said. These engineers work directly with clients, manage internal dynamics, and produce production-grade code to achieve results from models.
Amazon enters the space later than others. Palantir Technologies has maintained a similar unit for more than a decade, while Salesforce, Anthropic and Google Cloud offer comparable services. Forward-deployed engineering remains in demand even as tech firms cut jobs during AI expansion.
Box CEO Aaron Levie stated in May that such roles are set to become highly sought after in tech. Demand for forward-deployed engineers grew 42-fold from 2023 to 2025, according to a LinkedIn report.
AWS aims to staff the unit with thousands of employees through external hires and internal transfers. Amazon has reduced more than 30,000 corporate positions since October.
The announcement came during a two-day customer event in Washington, where further updates on government cloud services are expected.
Success will be judged by how quickly customers develop products or gain skills, Vasquez said. The goal is faster value delivery than traditional project work.
Initial customers include the National Basketball Association and Ricoh.
