AWS Leader on Cloud Lessons and AI’s Next Wave

Twenty years after Amazon Web Services began reshaping enterprise infrastructure, the company’s partner ecosystem is entering another major transition—this time driven by artificial intelligence.

In an interview with Channel Insider, Brian Bohan, director and global lead of the AWS Consulting Center of Excellence, discussed how lessons from the early cloud era are shaping AWS’s approach to AI adoption, why partners remain central to enterprise transformation, and how agentic AI and marketplace growth are creating new opportunities for consulting firms and systems integrators.

What AWS learned from 20 years of cloud innovation

AWS is now a powerhouse in the cloud computing space and one of the largest digital buying experiences worldwide. Twenty years ago, though, they were pioneering a transformation many didn’t know how to leverage in their businesses.

Bohan said that some of the biggest lessons he and others have learned from working with AWS partners and customers over the past two decades aren’t about technology at all; it’s about the people driving processes forward that keep businesses running, and they also require support during massive technical changes.

“So much of it was around, ‘this is going to radically alter how our people, our processes, and our culture evolve, and if you don’t address those changes, you won’t get the most you can out of moving to the cloud,” Bohan added.

Why partners have always been central to AWS growth

Bohan currently leads the consulting partners Center of Excellence and works with a subset of other AWS channel partners.

He joined AWS soon after the company formalized its partner network in 2012.

“We knew that to be able to scale and support customers in a broad way, partners were going to be integral to us doing that,” Bohan said.

Bohan has spent his time at AWS supporting some of the largest AWS partners, including Accenture, as they built out cloud practices once enterprise companies began to see AWS infrastructure as a long-term business strategy.

“From the very early days, we were concerned from the top down with our partners’ business health. We believed that if they were successful and could grow a profitable business with AWS, then our success would come,” Bohan said.

From cloud migration to AI adoption: what’s changing for partners

AWS was, of course, founded on the premise that cloud migration would fundamentally change the way businesses operate. As he noted above, that change took time, especially at the enterprise level, and is still ongoing in many cases.

Now, there’s a new innovation cycle taking every board meeting by storm.

“With AI, everything’s changing all over again, and it’s putting even more focus on being able to show up and have a real compelling value proposition to line of business leaders, who are now at the decision-making table in ways they never were,” Bohan said.

To Bohan, AI is driving many of the same conversations that cloud migrations have: businesses need to think holistically about such a massive undertaking, and channel partners are the key guides for many as they work through those changes.

“You need a deep context of your business, and a lot of that isn’t documented or written down. The people aspect of this is absolutely critical; all those aspects are there, it’s just in a different way [than cloud],” Bohan said.

Agentic AI creates new opportunities for AWS consulting partners

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Bohan believes agentic AI is radically changing how SIs and other partner types manage outcomes for their clients.

Bohan also said he now sees that most large deals require multiple partners to deliver a full transformation across the line, from those with deep expertise in building and deploying agents to those who can manage workplace transformation and the foundational data-readiness work required.

Moving forward, Bohan said programs like AI competencies are enabling partners to bring AI projects into full production 25% faster than others.

AWS Marketplace expands routes to market for partners

He also highlighted the importance of the AWS Marketplace in delivering additional opportunities and new routes to market for partners looking to build private offers and list their services on the marketplace.

Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, and others, Bohan said, have all listed their own AI agents on the marketplace and view it as a path forward in an AI-driven landscape.

READ MORE: We recently spoke with AWS partners and Matt Yanchyshyn, VP of AWS Marketplace and Partner Services, about the AWS Marketplace.

What’s next for AWS partners in the AI era

Looking ahead, Bohan said he sees no sign of AI demand slowing, considering how much existing technologies can still improve and the advent of new applications, including physical AI deployments, still to come.

“We’re so amazingly early still. As always, the rate limiter here is not the technology; it’s the humans,” he added.

Bohan also thinks quantum computing will begin to change how systems work and create another shift in the market. 

On the partner side of the business, Bohan said AWS is also beginning to work with startups and small partner organizations, which are blurring the lines between traditional ISV and consulting models as they lead with agentic AI solutions and services.

He added that many of these smaller partner organizations might be a signal to the much larger SIs of where market demand is headed and how they can shift their own services and solutions towards the needs of future customers.