At re:Invent 2025 in Las Vegas, Garman laid out his vision: an evolved channel program launching in January, designed to boost partner profitability and fuel AI-driven growth. For the 140,000 partners in the AWS orbit, this isn’t just incremental change; it’s a strategic realignment.
Garman minced no words: “Folks from the very largest system integrators [SIs] — Accenture, Deloitte, PwC and Slalom, all the way to Caylent — all the way down to individual and smaller SIs, they are the lifeblood of helping us in AWS connect our technology into our customers to really deliver that value.” This sentiment underscores a critical shift in how AWS views its market position.
It’s not about simply selling cloud services; it’s about empowering partners to tailor solutions, bridging the gap between raw technology and tangible business outcomes. This strategy acknowledges that true digital transformation rarely comes pre-packaged.
A key differentiator for AWS, according to partners, is its commitment to openness in the AI arena. Basis, an AWS Advanced Services Partner, has seen a 40% jump in AI sales this year by building solutions on Bedrock, SageMaker, and Textract, addressing specific client needs in law, medicine, finance, and real estate.
Joshua Corb, founder and CEO of Basis, highlights Bedrock’s appeal: “What we really like about Bedrock, and why we’ve used it for all our clients, is that it’s one source, one API.” This unified approach drastically reduces the complexity of experimenting with new models, allowing partners to adapt and innovate at unprecedented speed.
Why Openness Matters
The openness of AWS’s AI strategy stands in stark contrast to competitors who favor closed ecosystems. Garman emphasizes that “innovation happens in lots of different places, not just inside the walls of Amazon.” This philosophy extends to AgentCore, AWS’s agentic AI platform, designed to integrate seamlessly with models from Google, frameworks from Amazon, and open-source options like LlamaIndex.
Deloitte Consulting CEO Salzetti echoes this sentiment, noting that enterprise clients “demand” this level of flexibility. Their complex needs can’t be met by a single vendor, and AWS‘s willingness to incorporate diverse technologies is a major selling point.
“You look at every segment of the market, and this is where AWS’s strategy is really helpful to us because that openness in the modularity really allows us to evolve these solutions over time with our clients,” Salzetti said.
Garman’s leadership style is also resonating with partners. Innovative Solutions CEO Copie describes it as “different than leaders in the past,” emphasizing Garman’s accessibility and willingness to listen to feedback. This shift towards a more collaborative approach is fostering a sense of shared purpose within the AWS ecosystem.
Copie feels AWS is now “flatter,” enabling quicker implementation of partner feedback. This responsiveness is crucial in the fast-moving world of cloud and AI, where agility is paramount.
Garman believes that 2026 will be a pivotal year as customers rush to embrace the cloud and deploy AI projects. He sees AI as “an enormous tailwind” for both AWS and its partners, urging them to “lean in together” to capitalize on this opportunity. His message is clear: “Business is bigger than it’s ever been.”
By prioritizing partner success and fostering an open AI ecosystem, AWS is betting that collaboration, not control, is the key to long-term dominance. The coming years will reveal whether this strategy can truly unlock the full potential of the cloud and reshape the landscape of enterprise AI.
