Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been developing foundational models for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that would optimize generative AI applications. As the proliferation of data, cloud computing power, and innovation in AI models continue to grow, generative AI is poised to revolutionize various sectors. 

“Our vision now is about how can we help with the innovation that we have and especially also in the generative AI space, and really democratize it or make it available for our customers,” Olivier Klein, chief technologist at AWS, said in a virtual media briefing.

AWS recognizes the significance of foundation models in the generative AI landscape. Foundation models are pre-trained AI models that serve as the building blocks for creating custom generative AI applications. AWS offers a diverse range of foundation models. These models are designed to cater to various use cases, from text generation and summarization to image generation and design simulations.

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Klein underscored how its customers are using AWS for ML and AI with a unique focus on generative AI workloads. To make it even more accessible for customers, AWS either enhanced its offerings or developed new tools to meet the evolving needs of business operations utilizing AI.

AI foundation models

The company wants to enable customers to choose from the various foundation models (FMs) to find the most suitable for their use case of applications. AWS has invested in infrastructure with the goal of providing the most cost-effective way of running and fine-tuning generative AI applications.

“Suddenly we now have the capability to train these large data sets and build those generative AI models to drive a variety of things,” Klein said.

Klein pointed out that most familiar and mainstream AI use cases include virtual assistants and chatbots. But the company also has customers in contact center businesses or hyper-personalized kind of environments.

“We see a lot of generative AI starting to be used to really boost employee productivity,” he noted.

Amazon Bedrock

While foundation models are crucial, AWS introduced “Amazon Bedrock,” which empowers generative AI applications to not only provide answers but also take actions within existing workflows. By integrating this with various systems and data sources, businesses can streamline operations and enhance productivity significantly.

AWS is banking on Amazon Bedrock, launched recently, which is a fully managed service that makes FMs from Amazon and AI startups available through an API. With the Amazon Bedrock serverless experience, customers can quickly get started, easily experiment with FMs, privately customize FMs with their own data, and seamlessly integrate and deploy them into applications using AWS tools and capabilities. 

“The idea here is to provide you with these pre-trained foundation models from AWS and from our partners and make them available for you to then fine-tune securely and safely in your environment,” Oliver said.

Generative AI use cases

Amazon Bedrock hopes to make it easier for developers to create generative AI applications that can deliver up-to-date answers based on proprietary knowledge sources and complete tasks for a wide range of use cases. Utilizing the foundation models, developers can create their own generative AI applications.

AWS is also taking generative AI to industries where it can make a significant impact. For healthcare, they offer “AWS Health Scribe,” a service that transcribes and documents clinical conversations, allowing clinicians to focus on patient care while AI handles the documentation.

In the business intelligence sector, AWS has integrated generative AI capabilities into “Amazon QuickSight.” This empowers users to interact with their data using natural language, creating new reports and gaining insights effortlessly.