Despite these investments, Amazon is perceived as having lagged behind in the generative AI space. The company's Alexa division has faced technical and political challenges, and its own generative AI model, Bedrock, had to postpone its launch due to major bugs. Amazon also missed early investment opportunities in leading AI startups Cohere and Anthropic, and later had to co-invest in Anthropic with Google.
Key takeaways:
- Amazon is committing up to $230 million to startups building generative AI-powered applications, with $80 million funding its second annual AWS Generative AI Accelerator program.
- The investment comes in the form of compute credits for AWS infrastructure and cannot be transferred to other cloud service providers.
- Startups in this year's Generative AI Accelerator cohort will gain access to experts and tech from Nvidia and will be invited to join the Nvidia Inception program.
- Despite its investments, Amazon is perceived as having missed the boat on generative AI and has faced challenges with its Alexa division and missed opportunities with leading AI startups, Cohere and Anthropic.