AWS puts $1bn into a "forward deployed" AI engineers org

AWS is going all-in on Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs), putting $1 billion and a host of AI agents into a new organisation to help customers through tricky AI rollouts.

The new engineering organisation will give AWS customers direct access to AI engineers while deploying new technology, taking an “agentic-first” approach to the practice popularised by Palantir.

Frontier AI, Engineering, and Services VP Francessca Vasquez said the investment would help AWS meet customer demand for “production engineers embedded alongside their teams who know how to move AI agents from pilot to production in days, not months.”