- Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at AWS re:Invent 2024 keynote
- Jassy describes Amazon AI's work and what he's learned
- Amazon's priority is “technology that really matters to customers”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has outlined some of the company's biggest challenges when it comes to using AI.
Speaking as part of a special appearance at the AWS re:Invent 2024 keynote, Jassy highlighted the usefulness of “practical AI” in helping its customers.
Describing multiple examples of how the e-commerce giant uses AI internally, Jassy also shared some key learnings from the company's experiences with the technology, in addition to revealing its new fundamental Nova models.
Andy Jassy and Amazon AI
“We've been using AI broadly across the company for the last 25 years,” Jassy noted, “but the way we think about technology, and this applies to AI as well, is that we don't use it. “We use it because we think it's cool, we're using it because we're trying to solve customers' problems.”
“That's why when we talk about AI, it's usually not so much about announcing that we beat the best chess player in the world, but more about allowing it to have better recommendations or equipping our recruiters in our logistics centers… or for our “Just Walk Out” technology
“We prioritize technology that we think will be really important to customers, and with the explosion of generative AI in recent years, we've taken the same approach: there's a lot of innovation, but what we're trying to do is what we need to do. is solving problems for you – what we consider practical AI.”
In his time on stage, Jassy highlighted a number of examples of Amazon's use of generative AI, from customer service to building seller pages and inventory management.
Jassy also focused on Rufus, its generative AI chatbot, which is reportedly getting better and smarter at recommending products to customers around the world, and focused on robotics, which is becoming much more important in its logistics centers, providing enormous increases in efficiency and productivity.
But he noted that this work is not without challenges, even with the wealth of resources and knowledge that Amazon possesses.
“It's actually quite difficult to build a really good generative AI application: you need a good model, but you also need to have the right guardrails, the right message flow, and the right user interface.”
“We keep learning the same lesson over and over again: There will never be just one tool to rule the world.”
“At AWS, we'll give you the best match… as we always do.”
