Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently partnered with Accenture and Anthropic, allowing companies to have a well-rounded approach to AI implementation.
Speaking to AIM at the AWS Summit in Washington DC, AWS’ world public sector VP Dave Levy said that while they had partnered with both companies several times, this partnership meant their customers got a solution that was focused on all sides.
“It’s really a benefit for the customers. Whether you’re starting a GenAI project, or are in the middle of one. Whether you want to train the model, or build an application. All this is kind of covered between the three As [AWS, Anthropic and Accenture],” Levy said.
The partnership, announced in March this year, aims to leverage capabilities from all three companies to ensure that their customers have a very personalised version of the AI they need.
According to Anthropic, as many as 1,500 engineers from Accenture will be trained in using Anthropic’s AI models. This allows them to later help customers fine-tune Anthropic’s models using client data according to their needs, and make use of AWS’ cloud infrastructure.
The three-way partnership means that their clients will be able to get end-to-end support for all things AI within the company.
“All three organisations are providing key resources to take generative AI ideas from concept to production, especially those in regulated sectors where accuracy, reliability and data security are paramount,” Anthropic said on the partnership.
First of its Kind?
Now whether this partnership is the first of its kind is hard to say. Three-way partnerships have occurred within the industry, however, these aren’t meant to offer the same thing.
Take, for example, OpenAI’s recent partnership with Oracle and Microsoft. The partnership was mostly used to benefit OpenAI in helping expand the infrastructure needed to train and operate its models. This means that the burden of infrastructure is now shared by both Microsoft and Oracle, allowing OpenAI, which Microsoft has a stake in, to further expand its capabilities.
Meanwhile, in terms of partnerships specifically meant to serve industry partners, these have occurred, though on a much smaller and specific scale.
In June, Cognizant partnered with Google Cloud, specifically to launch large language model solutions for their healthcare clients. In the meantime, both IBM and Microsoft have open-ended partnership programmes, allowing their partners access to AI implementation and cloud solution, respectively.
Alternatively, AI and cloud solution companies have directly partnered with clients to offer their services, with at least two occurring this year – Apple and Meta, and Coca Cola and Microsoft.
Meanwhile, companies like Databricks have offered end-to-end services for their clients, with their Data Intelligence platform, though this is more on the data management side, rather than the implementation of AI.
However, Levy is still hesitant to outright confirm whether the 3A partnership will be the first of its kind. “I don’t know if I would go that far. We’ve all been partners for a while; we’ve been partners at Accenture for a long time. We’ve had conversations with Anthropic from when they first began. So I think there are customers who are excited. They’re ready, and they see the need,” he told AIM.
Defining the Future of AI in Enterprise
Whether or not this is the first of its kind, partnerships like these are more likely to occur as AI companies recognise a need to shift towards catering to enterprises.
As AIM had earlier reported, a focus on enterprise has gripped the AI industry, as many realise that AI helps streamline the often arduous processes for businesses, while also utilising the vast amounts of data they output.
With a partnership like this, where the three companies work together to provide an all-round solution for companies, other AI competitors could follow suit, if they haven’t already. Especially since companies seem to prefer having one solution, rather than approach different vendors for different solutions.
Whether other companies can out-leverage the advantage the 3As have, however, is yet to be seen. Levy pointed out that the partnership with Anthropic and Accenture is deliberate, as Accenture has been around for a long time, whereas Anthropic has managed to set itself apart as a quality AI company.
“You’ve got Accenture, which has a lot of trust with customers, helps customers think about things operationally, organisationally, and provides a lot of valuable consultant work, working hand in hand. And then you have Anthropic, which has made really high-judgement decisions about their models and how secure they are. Their security is very, very strong,” Levy said.
As time goes on, partnerships like these may become more common, as cloud, AI and customer-facing companies collaborate together to leverage their own strengths in offering an overall AI solution to their clients.
