Amazon Web Services announced that it launched Amazon Q, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) powered assistant that is specifically designed for workplaces.
According to a company press release, the assistant is designed to “provide information and advice to employees to streamline tasks, accelerate decision making and problem solving as well as spark creativity and innovation at work.” Amazon Q can tailor its interactions to each individual user based on an organization’s existing identities, roles and permissions.
“Generative AI has the potential to spur a technological shift that will reshape how people do everything from searching for information and exploring new ideas to writing and building applications,” said Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of data and artificial intelligence. “AWS is helping customers harness generative AI with solutions at all three layers of the stack, including purpose-built infrastructure, tools and applications.”
Dr. Sivasubramanian added, “By bringing generative AI to where our customers work … Amazon Q is a powerful addition to the application layer of our generative AI stack that opens up new possibilities for every organization.”
According to the New York Times, Amazon Q will compete with other corporate chatbots, including Copilot, Google’s Duet AI and ChatGPT Enterprise.
“We think Q has the potential to become a work companion for millions and millions of people in their work life,” Adam Selipsky, the chief executive of Amazon Web Services, said in an interview.
Selipsky stated that companies were interested in using chatbots in the workplace but wanted to first ensure that the bots would be secure with company data. Many companies “told me that they had banned these AI assistants from the enterprise because of the security and privacy concerns,” he said.
In addition to Amazon Q, the company also announced that it plans to strengthen its computing infrastructure for AI and expanded its partnership with Nvidia, a supplier of AI chips.
Earlier this month, NACS Daily reported on the launch of Amazon’s Astro, a robot security guard. The device can patrol up to 5,000 square feet of space and is now available for small to medium-sized businesses.