- Jeff Bezos emailed Amazon’s execs to ask why more AI firms are not using AWS.
- The former CEO looks to personally introduce more companies to AWS.
- AWS recently appointed a new “Wartime CEO” to compete in the AI space.
The former CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, appears to be worried about the AI efforts of the e-commerce giant, compared to competitors like Google, and Nvidia.
Jeff Bezos is Still Involved in Amazon’s AI Efforts
CNBC reported late Tuesday that Bezos has been sending emails to Amazon executives wondering why certain AI companies are using other cloud providers instead of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Despite retiring as CEO, Bezos is still involved in Amazon’s AI efforts. CNBC cited a source who admitted that Bezos is “hyper-aware” of the competition in the sector and what the likes of Google and Nvidia are doing.
As of April, AWS controlled 32% of cloud market share, followed by Microsoft (24%) and Google (11%). In Q1 2024, however, both Google and Microsoft saw marginal increases in their share, while AWS saw a rather steady growth as the previous quarter.
“Amazon held steady relative to the prior quarter, while Microsoft and Google both saw a marginal increase,” an analyst, John Dinsdale, told CRN.
AWS Appoints a “Wartime CEO” Amid Its Losing Position in AI
Perhaps, due to the gravity of the situation, AWS announced Tuesday that its CEO Adam Selipsky, who’s led the company for three years, will be replaced by Matt Garman, the SVP of AWS sales, effective June 3rd.
The “leadership change is needed as Amazon is perceived as lagging behind Google and Microsoft in AI,” the source told CNBC.
Amazon sees Garman as a “Wartime CEO” who’s more aggressive and technical. However, it deemed Selipsky as being more of a “Peacetime CEO.”
Bezos Seeks to Introduce More Firms to AWS
Besides the AWS leadership change, which is a strategic move by Amazon to assert its dominance in AI, the former CEO has also been making efforts to lift AWS, which is central to Amazon’s AI play.
Per the report, Bezos has been looking to introduce some AI startups to AWS.
In March, AWS became the main cloud provider for one of the biggest AI models, Claude. This happened after Amazon completed a $4 billion investment in Anthropic, the development company behind the AI models.