AWS Summit for Public Sector Partners: Big on Gen AI

In terms of adoption, Cannady said AWS continues to see “rapid growth within public sector and customers and partners moving to the AWS cloud, and they're really doing that to drive their mission and also modernize their technologies.”

Even so, AWS’ public sector group echoes what its other cohorts have told Channel Futures: “We really view ourselves [as] still in the beginning,” Cannady said. “If you look at third-party research, most sources show that only about 15% of workloads — and that's particularly true in government — have moved to the cloud at all. So we're still working with a lot of customers who are migrating workloads over and there’s just a lot of growth ahead.”

At last year’s re:Invent, AWS declared its intent to focus more on MSPs. In line with that commitment, the company’s public sector division has added some new programs for those channel partners.

The first falls under the auspices of a “Build” premise. (AWS operates under a “Build, Market, Sell” framework for MSPs.)

Here’s what’s happening for “Build” MSPs, per Cannady:

“We have Build Essentials, which is new self-serve technical content that was made specifically for MSPs. Then we have Build Workshops, which are … more white-glove workshop experiences with our technical experts that help partners formulate their MSP technical strategy. And then third, we're offering discounts and free trials to something that we have called Skill Builder, where they can … get paid content but at a discount.”

Next, AWS is focusing on helping MSPs with their marketing and sales efforts.

To the first point, expect more marketing development funds. After that, look for AWS to offer “Sell” participants a curated web page. That tells end users that an MSP is proven and validated through AWS.

“It’s a big priority area, especially within public sector,” Cannady said. “We have so many customers that do not have much of a technical staff within their organization. … So we see MSPs being a huge demand and definitely a major focus area for us.”

Up next, AWS’ public sector team is making the Business Outcomes Accelerator program (BOX, for short) generally available. It helps MSPs build on AWS, Cannady said.

End users are asking for off-the-shelf capabilities that require little technical input from them. 

“What's really unique about it that we learned in the pilot is that partners said they not only want our help advising them on how to build solutions, but they actually want to build solutions with other partners as well,” Cannady said. “So it’s more of a partner-to-partner thing.”

As such, AWS will host so-called matchmaking events within the BOX program. The company will invite partners of all different types to the gatherings for training and ideation, and provide technical support afterward. That way, “they walk out of the workshop with use-case ideas with other partners to build together,” Cannady explained.

The first matchmaking event for public sector partners took place a day before the D.C. Summit started.

Recall the Partner Transformation Program and its recently added “targeted modules"? AWS just added a gen AI module to the list.

AWS spent five months testing the program with 14 partners in the United States and Asia Pacific. Here’s how it looks now:

Over the course of two days, AWS trains participants on its gen AI services, including Bedrock and Amazon Q. Then, the cloud computing provider goes into an environment alongside the partner and identifies the partner’s engineering staff knowledge gaps. That shows where else a partner needs to invest. 

From there, AWS will brainstorm with the partner and develop use cases for public sector customers. In fact, MSP Rackspace went through that process and landed a government customer in California as a result. Rackspace built a gen AI assistant on Bedrock that helps call center representatives summarize conversations with citizens and better handle escalations with callers.

In terms of another gen AI use case, Cannady pointed to Accenture and its work with an education customer in Brazil. SOMOS Education serves more than 2 million students. Accenture created a gen AI assistant that helps teachers build lesson plans and tests. 

“They're doing less of the manual work and more of the creative ideation,” Cannady said. 

As another example, AWS helped a health care firm build a behavioral health digital assistant. Doctors, nurses and other clinicians can offer treatment recommendations based on data captured during meetings with patients. It also helps workers better control burnout because it assists with document summarization and other mundane tasks.

In terms of another gen AI use case, Cannady pointed to Accenture and its work with an education customer in Brazil. SOMOS Education serves more than 2 million students. Accenture created a gen AI assistant that helps teachers build lesson plans and tests. 

“They're doing less of the manual work and more of the creative ideation,” Cannady said. 

As another example, AWS helped a health care firm build a behavioral health digital assistant. Doctors, nurses and other clinicians can offer treatment recommendations based on data captured during meetings with patients. It also helps workers better control burnout because it assists with document summarization and other mundane tasks.