AWS to Launch AI Agent Marketplace with Anthropic as Key Partner

AWS is launching an AI agent marketplace next week with Anthropic as a partner | TechCrunch

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is launching an AI agent marketplace next week and Anthropic is one of its partners, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The AWS agent marketplace launch will take place at the AWS Summit in New York City on July 15, two people familiar with the development told TechCrunch. AWS and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comments. AI agents are ubiquitous nowadays. And every single investor in Silicon Valley is bullish on startups building them -- even if there is some disagreement on exactly what defines an AI agent. The term is somewhat ambiguous and is loosely used to describe computer programs that can make decisions and perform tasks independently, such as interacting with software, by using an AI model at the backend. AI behemoths such as OpenAI and Anthropic are promoting it as the next big thing in tech. However, the distribution of AI agents poses a challenge, as most companies offer them in silos. AWS appears to be taking a step to address this with its new move. The company's dedicated agent marketplace will allow startups to directly offer their AI agents to AWS customers. The marketplace will also allow enterprise customers to browse, install, and look for AI agents based on their requirements from a single location, a source said. That could give Anthropic -- and other AWS agent marketplace partners -- a considerable boost. Anthropic, which already has Amazon's backing and is reportedly in line for another multibillion-dollar investment from the e-commerce company, views AI's future primarily in terms of agents -- at least for the coming years. Anthropic builds AI agents in-house and enables developers to create them using its API. AWS' marketplace would help Anthropic reach more customers, including those who may already use AI agents from its rivals, such as OpenAI. Anthropic's involvement in the marketplace could also attract more developers to use its API to create more agents, and eventually increase its revenues. The company already hit $3 billion in annualized revenue in late May. Like any other online marketplace, AWS will take a cut of the revenue that startups earn from agent installations. However, this share will be minimal compared to the marketplace's potential to unlock new revenue streams and attract customers. The marketplace model will allow startups to charge customers for agents. The structure is similar to how a marketplace might price SaaS offerings rather than bundling them into broader services, one of the sources said. Amazon is not the first tech giant to offer a marketplace for agents. In April, Google Cloud introduced an AI Agent Marketplace to help developers and businesses list, buy, and sell AI agents. Microsoft also introduced a similar offering, called Agent Store, within Microsoft 365 Copilot a month later. Similarly, enterprise software providers, including Salesforce and ServiceNow have their own agent marketplaces. That said, we have yet to see how successful these marketplaces are for smaller AI startups and enterprises seeking specific AI agents.

Report: AWS set to launch agentic AI marketplace with Anthropic next week - SiliconANGLE

Report: AWS set to launch agentic AI marketplace with Anthropic next week Amazon Web Services Inc. is set to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft Corp. and Google Cloud and launch a dedicated marketplace for artificial intelligence agents, and its favorite AI developer Anthropic PBC is set to be one of its launch partners, according to a report in TechCrunch. The report, which cites two anonymous sources familiar with AWS's plans, said the company is expected to make an announcement at next week's AWS Summit in New York City, a two-day event that kicks off on July 15. AI agents are the biggest buzzword in the technology industry right now, representing the next step up from generative AI. Although there's no widely accepted definition of the term, AI agents are systems that are designed to work autonomously and proactively, completing tasks on behalf of human users with minimal supervision. They're powered by large language models such as Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4o, and can use logic to make decisions independently, while taking into account the context of the situation they're operating in. Some examples of AI agents include those that operate self-driving cars, using sensors to navigate roads and traffic safely, or call center agents that can communicate with customers and process refunds on their behalf, without needing to involve a human agent. Although AI agents only really became a thing last year, they have generated tremendous excitement, and almost every AI developer is laser-focused on their development. OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman has made it clear on more than one occasion that agentic AI is the next "big thing" for AI, and so has just about every other personality in the industry. That said, most AI companies today sell their AI agents and related services in silos, and that causes a lot of fragmentation, preventing their widespread adoption. By creating a dedicated marketplace through which multiple AI firms can advertise their AI agents, AWS will make it much easier for its customers to browse through what's on offer, find the agents they need, and deploy them in their cloud computing environments. Anthropic and other partners will be able to charge for access to their AI agents. According to one of the sources, AWS intends to operate the marketplace on a software-as-a-service model, giving developers the flexibility to choose from subscription-based or usage-based pricing. Of course, AWS will want a cut of the profits generated by these AI agents, but TechCrunch's source said its fees will be somewhat "minimal" considering the amount of revenue they can potentially unlock. The partnership makes a lot of sense for Anthropic, because AWS is the world's most popular cloud infrastructure platform. It can help the company to put its agentic AI offerings in front of thousands of new customers, including many that currently use its rivals' services. In turn, its exposure there may also tempt more developers to explore its application programming interface, which allows them to create their own AI agents. It's a good move for AWS too, not only because Anthropic's models are considered among the best in the business, but because it also happens to be one of the startup's main investors, having thrown an eye-watering $13.8 billion at it so far. It's likely to invest even more in the company soon - just yesterday, SiliconANGLE reported that Amazon executives were holding further discussions with Anthropic, though no exact numbers were mentioned. AWS is also Anthropic's primary cloud provider, giving it access to hundreds of thousands of graphics processing units to train and run its AI models. Amazon's proposed AI agent marketplace will compete with similar offerings from Google Cloud and Microsoft. In April, Google launched an AI Agent Marketplace for businesses to list, buy and sell AI agents, and one month later Microsoft followed up with the Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Store. The likes of Salesforce Inc. and ServiceNow Inc. also operate agentic AI marketplaces.