AWS for Software Companies Podcast

PDI Technologies’ Steve Antonakakis shares how his company is implementing generative AI across their fuel and retail technology ecosystem through a practical, customer-focused approach using Amazon Bedrock.Topics Include:PDI's COO/CTO discussing generative AI implementationPractical step-by-step approach to AI integrationTesting in real-world settings with customer feedbackAWS Bedrock and Nova models exceeded expectationsEarly adoption phase with huge potentialFuel/retail industry processes many in-person transactionsPDI began in 1983 as ERP providerGrew through 33+ acquisitionsProvides end-to-end fuel industry solutionsOwns GasBuddy and Shell Fuel RewardsProcesses millions of transactions dailyGenerative AI fits into their intelligence plane architectureAWS Bedrock integrates well with existing infrastructureFocus on trusted, controlled, accountable AIProductizing AI features harder than traditional featuresCreated entrepreneurial structure alongside regular product teamsTeam designed to fail fast but stay customer-focusedAI features can access databases without disrupting applicationsCustomers want summarization across different business areasAI provides insights and actionable recommendationsConversational AI replaces traditional reporting limitationsWorking closely with customers to solve problems togetherBeyond prototyping phase, now in implementationAWS Nova provides excellent cost-to-value ratioFocus on measuring customer value over immediate profitabilityRFP use case saved half a million dollarsEarly prompts were massive, now more structuredSetting realistic customer expectations is importantData security approach same as other applicationsTreating AI outputs with same data classification standardsParticipants:Steve Antonakakis – COO & CTO, Retail & Energy, PDI TechnologiesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

AWS partners Braze, Qualtrics, and Tealium share strategies for marketplace success, vertical industry expansion, and generative AI integration that have driven significant business growth.Topics Include:Jason Warren introduces AWS Business Application Partnerships panel.Three key topics: Marketplace Strategy, Vertical Expansion, Gen-AI Integration.Alex Rees of Braze, Matthew Gray of Tealium, and Jason Mann of Qualtrics join discussion.Braze experienced triple-digit percentage growth through AWS Marketplace.Braze dedicating resources specifically to Marketplace procurement.Tealium accelerated deal velocity by listing on Marketplace.Tealium saw broader use case expansion with AWS co-selling.Qualtrics views Marketplace listing as earning a "diploma."Understanding AWS incentives and metrics is crucial.Knowing AWS "love language" helps partnership success.Braze saw transaction volume increase between Q1 and Q4.Aligning with industry verticals unlocked faster growth.Tealium sees bigger deals and faster close times.Tealium moved from transactional to strategic marketplace approach.Private offers work well for complex enterprise agreements.Qualtrics measures AWS partnership through "influence, intel, introductions."AWS relationships help navigate IT and procurement challenges.Propensity-to-buy data guides AWS engagement strategy.Marketplace strategy evolving with new capabilities and international expansion.Brazilian marketplace distribution reduces currency and tax challenges.Partnership evolution: sell first, then market, then co-innovate.Braze penetrated airline market through AWS Travel & Hospitality.RFP introductions show tangible partnership benefits.Tealium partnering with Virgin Australia and United Airlines.MUFG bank case study shows joint AWS-Tealium success.Qualtrics won awards despite not completing formal competencies.Focus on fewer verticals yields better results.Gen AI brings both opportunities and regulatory concerns.First-party data rights critical for AI implementation.AWS Bedrock integration provides security and prescriptive solutions.Participants:Alex Rees – Director Tech Partnerships, BrazeJason Mann – Global AWS Alliance Lead, QualtricsMatthew Gray - SVP, Partnerships & Alliances, TealiumJason Warren - Head of Business Applications ISV Partnerships (Americas), AWSSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Yashodha Bhavnani, Head of AI at Box, reveals Box's vision for intelligent content management that transforms unstructured data into actionable insights.Topics Include:Yashodha Bhavnani leads AI products at Box.Box's mission: power how the world works together.Box serves customers globally across various industries.Works with majority of Fortune 500 companies.AI agents will join workforce for repetitive tasks.Workflows like hiring will become easily automated with AI.Content will work for users, not vice versa.Customers demand better experiences with generative AI.Box calls this shift "intelligent content management."90% of enterprise content is unstructured data.AI thrives on unstructured data.Current content systems are unproductive and unsecured.AI can generate insights from scattered company knowledge.AI extracts metadata automatically from documents like contracts.Automated workflows triggered by AI-extracted data.Box provides enterprise-grade AI connected to your content.AI follows same permissions as the content itself.Customer data never used to train AI models.AI helps classify sensitive data to prevent leaks.Box offers choice of AI models to customers.AI is seamlessly connected with customer content.Administrators control AI deployment across their organization.Partnership with AWS Bedrock brings frontier models to Box.Box supports customers using their own custom models.Box preparing for AI agents to join workforce.Introduced "AI Units" for flexible pricing.Basic AI included free with Business Plus tiers.Both horizontal and vertical multi-agent architectures planned.Working toward agent-to-agent communication protocols.Participants:Yashodha Bhavnani - VP of Product Management, AI products, BoxSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Tech leaders from RingCentral, Zoom and AWS discuss how generative AI is transforming business communications while balancing challenges & regulatory concerns in this rapidly evolving landscape.Topics Include:Introduction of panel on generative AI's impact on businesses.How to transition AI from prototypes to production.Understanding value creation for customers through AI.Introduction of Khurram Tajji from RingCentral.Introduction of Brendan Ittleson from Zoom.How generative AI fits into Zoom's product offerings.Zoom's AI companion available to all paid customers.Zoom's federated approach to AI model selection.RingCentral's new AI Receptionist (AIR) launch.How AIR routes calls using generative AI capabilities.AI improving customer experience through sentiment analysis.The disproportionate value of real-time AI assistance.Economics of delivering real-time AI capabilities.Real-time AI compliance monitoring in banking.Value of preventing regulatory fines through AI.Voice cloning detection through AI security.Democratizing AI access across Zoom's platform.Monetizing specialized AI solutions for business value.Challenges in taking AI prototypes to production.Importance of selecting the right AI models.Privacy considerations when training AI models.Maintaining quality without using customer data for training.Co-innovation with customers during product development.Scaling challenges for AI businesses.Case study of AI in legal case assessment.Ensuring unit economics work before scaling AI applications.Zoom's approach to scaling AI across products.Importance of centralizing but federating AI capabilities.Breaking down data silos for effective AI context.Navigating evolving regulations around AI.EU AI Act restrictions on emotion inference.Balancing regulations with customer experience needs.Future of AI agents interacting with other agents.How AI enhances human connection by handling routine tasks.Impact of AI on company valuations and M&A activity.Participants:Khurram Tajji – Group CMO & Partnerships, RingCentralBrendan Ittleson – Chief Ecosystem Officer, ZoomSirish Chandrasekaran – VP of Analytics, AWSSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

CEO Joe Kim shares how Sumo Logic has implemented generative AI to democratize data analytics, leveraging AWS Bedrock's multi-agent capabilities to dramatically improve accuracy.Topics Include:Introduction of Joe Kim, CEO of Sumo Logic.Question: Overview of Sumo Logic's products and customers?Sumo Logic specializes in observability and security markets.Company leverages industry-leading log management and analytics capabilities.Question: How has generative AI entered this space?Kim's background is in product, strategy and engineering.Non-experts struggle to extract value from complex telemetry data.Generative AI provides easier interface for interacting with data.Question: How do you measure success of AI initiatives?Focus on customer problems, not retrofitting AI everywhere.Launched "Mo, the co-pilot" at AWS re:Invent.Mo enables natural language queries of complex data.Mo suggests visualizations and follow-up questions during incidents.Question: What challenges did you face implementing AI?Team knew competitors would eventually implement similar capabilities.Single model approach topped out at 80% accuracy.Multi-agent approach with AWS Bedrock achieved mid-90% accuracy.Bedrock offered security benefits and multiple model capabilities.Question: How was working with the AWS team?Partnered with Bedrock team and tribe.ai for implementation.Partners helped avoid pitfalls from thousands of prior projects.Question: What advice for other software leaders?Don't implement AI just to satisfy board pressure.Identify problems without mentioning generative AI first.Innovation should come from listening to customers.Question: Future plans with AWS partnership?Moving toward automated remediation beyond just analysis.Question: Has Sumo Logic monetized generative AI?Changed pricing from data ingestion to data usage.New model encourages more data sharing without cost barriers.Participants:Joe Kim – Chief Executive Officer, Sumo LogicSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

CTO Arun Kumar discusses how Socure leverages AWS and generative AI to collect billions of data points each day in order to combat sophisticated online fraud at scale.Topics Include:Introduction of Arun Kumar, CTO of SocureWhat does Socure specialize in?KYC and anti-money laundering checksMission: eliminate 100% fraud on the internetFraud has increased since COVIDSocure blocks fraud at entry pointWorks with top banks and government agenciesCTO responsibilities include product and engineeringFocus on increasing efficiency through technologyTwo goals: internal efficiency and combating fraudCountering tools like FraudGPT on dark webMeasuring success through reduced human capital needsFraud investigations reduced from hours to minutesImproved success rates in uncovering fraud ringsDetecting multi-hop connections in fraud networksQuestion: Who's winning - fraudsters or AI?It's a constant "cat and mouse game"Creating a fraud "red team" similar to cybersecurityPartnership details with AWSAmazon Bedrock provides multiple LLM optionsBuilding world's largest identity graph with NeptuneReal-time suspicious activity detectionBlocking account takeovers through phone number changesSuccess story: detecting deepfake across 3,000 IDsCollecting hundreds of data points per identityChallenges: adding selfie checks and liveness detectionFuture strategy: 10x-100x performance improvementsCreating second and third-order intelligence signalsInternal efficiency applications of generative AIAI-powered sales tools and legal document reviewParticipants:Arun Kumar – Chief Technical Officer, SocureSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Oron Noah of Wiz outlines how organizations evolve their security practices to address new vulnerabilities in AI systems through improved visibility, risk assessment, and pipeline protection.Topics Include:Introduction of Oron Noah, VP at Wiz.Wiz: largest private service security company.$1.9 billion raised from leading VCs.45% of Fortune 100 use Wiz.Wiz scans 60+ Amazon native services.Cloud introduced visibility challenges.Cloud created risk prioritization issues.Security ownership shifted from CISOs to everyone.Wiz offers a unified security platform.Three pillars: Wiz Cloud, Code, and Defend.Wiz democratizes cloud security for all teams.Security Graph uses Amazon Neptune.Wiz has 150+ available integrations.Risk analysis connects to cloud environments.Wiz identifies critical attack paths.AI assists in security graph searches.AI helps with remediation scripts.AI introduces new security challenges.70% of customers already use AI services.AI security requires visibility, risk assessment, pipeline protection.AI introduces risks like prompt injection.Data poisoning can manipulate AI results.Model vulnerabilities create attack vectors.AI Security Posture Management (ASPM) introduced.Four key questions for AI security.AI pipelines resemble traditional cloud infrastructure.Wiz researchers found real AI security vulnerabilities.Wiz AI ASPM provides agentless visibility.Supports major AI services (AWS, OpenAI, etc.).Built-in rules detect AI service misconfigurations.Participants:Oron Noah – VP Product Extensibility & Partnerships, WizSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ruslan Kusov of SoftServe presents how their Application Modernization Framework accelerates ISV modernization, assesses legacy code, and delivers modernized applications through platform engineering principles.Topics Include:Introduction of Ruslan Kusov, Cloud CoE Director at SoftServeSoftServe builds code for top ISVsSuccess case: accelerated security ISV modernization by six monthsHealthcare tech company assessment: 1.6 million code lines in weeksBusiness need: product development acceleration for competitive advantageBusiness need: intelligent operations automationBusiness need: ecosystem integration and "sizeification" to cloudBusiness need: secure and compliant solutionsBusiness need: customer-centric platforms with personalized experiencesBusiness need: AWS marketplace integrationDistinguishing intentional from unintentional complexityPlatform engineering concept introductionSelf-service internal platforms for standardizationApplying platform engineering across teams (GenAI, CSO, etc.)No one-size-fits-all approach to modernizationSAMP/SEMP framework introductionCore components: EKS, ECS, or LambdaModular structure with interchangeable componentsCase study: ISV switching from hardware to software productsFour-week MVP instead of planned ten weeksSix-month full modernization versus planned twelve monthsAssessment phase importance for business case developmentCalculating cost of doing nothing during modernization decisionsHealthcare customer case: 1.6 million code lines assessedBenefits: platform deployment in under 20 minutesBenefits: 5x reduced assessment timeBenefits: 30% lower infrastructure costsBenefits: 20% increased development productivity with GenAIIntegration with Amazon Q for developer productivityClosing Q&A on security modernization and ongoing managementParticipants:Ruslan Kusov – Cloud CoE Director, SoftserveSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Richard Sonnenblick and Lee Rehwinkel of Planview discuss their transition to Amazon Bedrock for a multi-agent AI system while sharing valuable implementation and user experience lessons.Topics Include:Introduction to Planview's 18-month journey creating an AI co-pilot.Planview builds solutions for strategic portfolio and agile planning.5,000+ companies with millions of users leverage Planview solutions.Co-pilot vision: AI assistant sidebar across multiple applications.RAG used to ingest customer success center documents.Tracking product data, screens, charts, and tables.Incorporating industry best practices and methodologies.Can ingest customer-specific documents to understand company terminology.Key benefit: Making every user a power user.Key benefit: Saving time on tedious and redundant tasks.Key benefit: De-risking initiatives through early risk identification.Cost challenges: GPT-4 initially cost $60 per million tokens.Cost now only $1.20 per million tokens.Market evolution: AI features becoming table stakes.Performance rubrics created for different personas and applications.Multi-agent architecture provides technical and organizational scalability.Initial implementation used Azure and GPT-4 models.Migration to AWS Bedrock brought model choice benefits.Bedrock allowed optimization across cost, benchmarking, and speed dimensions.Added AWS guardrails and knowledge base capabilities.Lesson #1: Users hate typing; provide clickable options.Lesson #2: Users don't like waiting; optimize for speed.Lesson #3: Users take time to trust AI; provide auditable answers.Question about role-based access control and permissions.Co-pilot uses user authentication to access application data.Question about subscription pricing for AI features.Need to educate customers about AI's value proposition.Question about reasoning modes and timing expectations.Showing users the work process makes waiting more tolerable.Participants:Richard Sonnenblick - Chief Data Scientist, PlanviewLee Rehwinkel – Principal Data Scientist, PlanviewSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Executives from DataRobot, LaunchDarkly and ServiceNow share strategies, actions and recommendations to achieve profitable growth in today's competitive SaaS landscape.Topics Include:Introduction of panelists from DataRobot, LaunchDarkly & ServiceNowServiceNow's journey from service management to workflow orchestration platform.DataRobot's evolution as comprehensive AI platform before AI boom.LaunchDarkly's focus on helping teams decouple release from deploy.Rule of 40: balancing revenue growth and profit margin.ServiceNow exceeding standards with Rule of 50-60 approach.Vertical markets expansion as key strategy for sustainable growth.AWS Marketplace enabling largest-ever deal for ServiceNow.R&D investment effectiveness through experimentation and feature management.Developer efficiency as driver of profitable SaaS growth.Competition through data-driven decisions rather than guesswork.Speed and iteration frequency determining competitive advantage in SaaS.Balancing innovation with early customer adoption for AI products.Product managers should adopt revenue goals and variable compensation.Product-led growth versus sales-led motion: strategies and frictions.Sales-led growth optimized for enterprise; PLG for practitioners.Marketplace-led growth as complementary go-to-market strategy.Customer acquisition cost (CAC) as primary driver of margin erosion.Pricing and packaging philosophy: platform versus consumption models.Value realization must precede pricing and packaging discussions.Good-better-best pricing model used by LaunchDarkly.Security as foundation of trust in software delivery.LaunchDarkly's Guardian Edition for high-risk software release scenarios.Security for regulated industries through public cloud partnerships.GenAI security: benchmarks, tests, and governance to prevent issues.M&A strategy: ServiceNow's 33 acquisitions for features, not revenue.Replatforming acquisitions into core architecture for consistent experience.Balancing technology integration with people aspects during acquisitions.Trends in buying groups: AI budgets and tool consolidation.Implementing revenue goals in product teams for new initiatives.Participants:Prajakta Damle – Head of Product / SVP of Product, DataRobotClaire Vo – Chief Product & Technology Officer, LaunchDarklyAnshuman Didwania – VP/GM, Hyperscalers Business Group, ServiceNowAkshay Patel – Global SaaS Strategist, Amazon Web ServicesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/