Amazon's AWS pumps £754m into new AI engineering unit

Amazon Web Services is investing $1bn (£754m) in a new Forward Deployed Engineering division designed to embed AI engineers directly with customers to speed deployment. AWS says small teams will co-develop and launch “agentic AI” tools inside customer businesses, aiming to move projects beyond pilots and into live operations. Reuters reports the company plans to send five- to six-person engineering pods for 45-day periods, using their own data, governance and processes to build production-ready systems. The unit will sit within AWS and will employ “thousands,” filled through a mix of external hiring and internal transfers. AWS vice president Francessca Vasquez said demand is strong for support applying agentic AI to business workflows. Customers already working with FDE teams include the NBA, NFL, Ricoh, Southwest Airlines, Cox Automotive and the Allen Institute, as the model expands beyond long-time use by Palantir.