Leaked messages show early challenges for Amazon’s big AI product and concern about losing customers to Microsoft

Disappointing early sales data

Internal data also hint at disappointing sales for Q.

One part of AWS’s sales team, with more than 3,000 people, missed a sales target for Q that it was supposed to hit by July, according to internal data obtained by BI. The data, which was tracked by Amazon’s most senior leadership team, showed that Q’s sales fell short of its goals across all regions, most notably the North American market.

Amazon has also struggled to keep track of how this new AI product is selling.

AWS spokesperson Neighorn said the internal sales data obtained by BI came from “inaccurate preliminary figures based on an incomplete methodology that we fixed weeks ago.” BI knows the specific sales numbers and targets from the internal data, but is not publishing them due to Amazon correcting its methodology.

“Customers are excited about Amazon Q, which is seeing rapid customer adoption since its launch only four months ago and is already close to meeting our ambitious sales goals,” Neighorn said.

$260 million in efficiency gains

AWS CEO Matt Garman instructed a part of his sales team with roughly 6,500 employees to undergo a mandatory half-day training for Amazon Q earlier this year, according to an internal message seen by BI.

The training, designed to build the “confidence and skills” needed to sell Q, covered everything from Amazon Q’s branding and security features to supply chain and coding overview, the message said.

Neighorn, AWS’s spokepseron, told BI that sales trainings are “standard practice” for enterprise technology companies, and any suggestion that it’s unusual is “false.”

Garman appears to have high hopes for AI assistants like Amazon Q. At an internal talk in June, he said software engineers may soon stop coding because of the advancements in these types of AI tools, BI previously reported. Amazon is also working on a separate AI chatbot, internally codenamed Metis.

For now, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy may be the biggest salesperson for Amazon Q. Last month, he wrote on LinkedIn that Amazon’s internal use of Q has helped the company gain “significant efficiencies,” adding that it saved the company “4,500 developer-years of work” and an estimated $260 million in “annualized efficiency gains.”

“It’s been a game changer for us, and not only do our Amazon teams plan to use this transformation capability more, but our Q team plans to add more transformations for developers to leverage,” Jassy wrote.

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