Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the launch of a new internal organization dedicated to AI-focused forward-deployed engineers (FDEs), who will work directly with customers to deploy purpose-built AI agents. The engineers will embed within client organizations, focusing on rapid deployments while helping customers become self-sufficient in managing and scaling AI systems.
In a post announcing the initiative, AWS Vice President of Frontier AI Francessca Vasquez said the new organization will go beyond building and maintaining AI systems. “Customers leave AWS FDE deployments with both new solutions and new engineering capabilities,” the announcement reads. “Along with agentic systems running in their own AWS environment, they gain lasting AI skills, workflows, and patterns they can use to innovate independently.”
Amazon said it will dedicate $1 billion in internal resources to the initiative. The company noted that the figure reflects its own investment in personnel and capabilities, rather than a joint venture or a traditional outside investment.
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The FDE model, which was pioneered by Palantir, has become increasingly popular as a way to manage AI deployments. In this system, typically, an engineer from the contracting company —in this case, AWS — works for the client temporarily while the system is being established. This allows them to respond directly as internal opportunities or challenges emerge.
Vasquez said AWS’ new unit will be seeded with “thousands” of FDEs. An initial pod of roughly five or six engineers will be embedded within an AWS customer at a time, and those employees will also work alongside AI agents, which are tools that can independently complete tasks on behalf of their users.
AWS also said in a blog post that its FDE embeds will partner closely with customers’ business, engineering and security staffers, and they’ll look to leave behind self-sufficient teams with new solutions and capabilities in a matter of weeks.
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“The currency that the customers are always talking about right now is speed,” Vasquez said. “We do see FDE being a choice for customers who are looking for accelerated value back to their stakeholders, their customers, their executive teams.”
OpenAI and Anthropic have already launched their FDE ventures in recent months, valued at $4 billion and $1.5 billion respectively. The two AI firms were paired with private equity firms that provided the capital to launch and connections with client corporations in their portfolios.
A spokesperson for AWS said the company expects to have the opportunity to work with the FDE companies from OpenAI and Anthropic, and it will share more details about its partner programs in the near future.