Leadership Perspectives

Building a compelling AI business case requires looking beyond traditional ROI to capture the full value of transformation. AI’s greatest value is time compression. Tasks that once took weeks can now take hours or minutes. True productivity gains come from reinvesting that saved time into what matters most, like accelerating R&D, speeding campaigns, or personalizing customer experiences.

A framework for executives to measure AI’s impact includes:

● Direct Productivity Gains: Amazon Q Developer saved 4,500 developer years and $260 million annually; Availity doubled insight speed and cut review time by 75%. These are tangible, bottom-line impacts.

● Acceleration Metrics: Novacomp upgraded 10,000 lines of Java code in 50 minutes, a task that typically takes three weeks, turning speed into a competitive advantage.

● Quality Improvements: BMW achieved 85% accuracy in root cause analysis by using AI to enable better decisions and prevent costly outages.

● Opportunity Cost: By not adopting AI, you risk falling behind in markets where autonomous agents will deliver 24/7 decision-making at scale. This could be the difference between market leadership and obsolescence.

● Compound Effect: AI capabilities build on and feed into each other, creating exponential value over time. Start with clear, measurable projects that solve real business problems, and plan for scalable growth.

Balancing AI with human input is key to unlocking real value. A few guiding principles I recommend are:

● Use AI for acceleration, not autopilot: Let it draft, generate, and structure, but keep humans in the loop for vision and quality. Tools like Kiro, which automate app planning based on business needs while allowing teams to keep creative control, are a great example; they can turn a whiteboard sketch into a functional app plan, but it still takes human insight to guide that sketch and refine the results.

● Build governance from day one: We, the humans, have to tell AI what it can and cannot do on our behalf. You will need enterprise scale ways to manage, monitor, and authenticate agents. Platforms like AgentCore have security, observability, and authentication built in. This transparency is essential for trust and control.

● Invest in upskilling your team: Our AI Ready program has trained over two million people because the most effective organizations are those where humans and AI work together seamlessly. Knowing AI’s strengths — and its boundaries — is critical.

The goal isn’t to automate everything. It’s to improve human capabilities, freeing up time for what matters most: creativity, strategy, and customer relationships. When companies strike that balance, they see real outcomes.

We see StayinFront leveraging Amazon Q to expand the capabilities of their automated testing, as well as to improve their scale and performance testing capabilities. These advancements will help them to provide even more reliable and efficient solutions to their clients.

StayinFront’s Retail Optimization Platform (ROP) is a perfect example. Store visit just couldn’t be completed without the reps, but AI helps them drive their retail execution goals at every stage. First, the AI capabilities within Dynamic Routing directs reps to the stores with the greatest opportunities for growth. Advanced Predictive Analytics calculations quantify the dollar value of visiting each store, use mapping systems to establish geographic clusters, and determine the most effective route to minimize drive times and maximize sales.

At the shelf, On-Device AI brings AI-powered capabilities directly onto the rep’s device, enabling real-time processing and offline functionality while delivering results in seconds. Combined with StayinFront Digital’s Burst Mode, reps can capture a series of shelf photos while walking down an aisle. AI can digitally stitch these images together and help leverage the insights they gather to suggest Next Best Actions, all while in-store.

They will finish by transforming this data into measurable, actionable insights, feeding this data into new opportunities using Retail Data Insight (RDI) to keep the cycle of retail growth going. This creates a seamless routine, leaving little room for human-made errors. Instead of focusing on minuscule, ancillary tasks, reps can use their skills to drive sales.

In three years, AI will be deeply embedded in business operations. Every team will interact with AI in some form, and AI agents will become as common as smartphones, handling tasks like scheduling, research, and data analysis. In sectors like retail and life sciences, agents will manage inventory, forecast demand, and support early-stage drug discovery.

In five years, AI will fundamentally reshape industry competition. Intelligent, self-optimizing systems will be the norm, and we’ll see real multi-agent collaboration. Imagine a product launch where AI agents handle market research, supply chain logistics, compliance, and marketing, working in sync. The human role will shift from execution to orchestration, guiding agents toward strategic outcomes.

Over the long term, AI will transform how businesses operate, just as the internet reshaped commerce. We’ll see billions of specialized agents collaborating to solve complex challenges – from running clinical trials in life sciences to designing consumer products in real time. But humans will remain at the center. AI isn’t here to replace creativity or judgment; it’s here to amplify them. The most successful organizations will be those that best combine human insight with AI capabilities. Companies that fail to evolve risk extinction, even legacy tech players.

The most important message I have for business leaders is that the AI transformation is not impending; it’s here. But no one expects you to figure it out alone.

Whether you want to build from scratch or start with proven solutions, AWS is focused on giving you the widest range of AI tools, models, and services — at a global scale. Our heritage is in helping builders, but we also offer one of the most robust marketplaces for ready-to-use AI solutions.

What matters most is delivering value and helping every organization, across every industry, harness AI in a way that works for them. The future of AI is about choice, speed, and practical innovation, and we’re here to help customers unlock it.