PwC Alliances Head on AWS Partnership, Enterprise AI & More

AWS re:Invent 2025 once again showed the tech giant’s power in the market across cloud, AI, security, and channel partner collaboration. We spoke with Patrick Pugh, the global and US alliances leader at consulting and services firm PwC, about the company’s mutual success with AWS.

How AWS and PwC combine industry and cloud expertise for enterprise outcomes

AWS and PwC have partnered for years on a variety of offerings intended to scale AWS’ extensive suite of solutions across enterprise clients worldwide. The goal, Pugh stresses, is to bring those customers a complementary, holistic solution, in which the technological strength of AWS is supported by the industry expertise PwC brings.

Pugh also says the very nature of alliances has changed dramatically over the last few years as the business challenges facing enterprises have grown significantly more complex.

“We’re now seeing a change, where it’s multiple partners coming together to address complex challenges and sometimes unknown challenges for businesses,” Pugh said.

To him, the alliances that PwC builds with AWS and other strategic partners brings those customers solutions through efficiency and productivity gains.

“Together, we have figured out how to help companies unlock efficiencies through technology,” Pugh added.

Why enterprise customers now expect holistic, outcomes-driven IT strategies

To do that, Pugh highlights a trend we’ve covered throughout this year: services partners need to get to the root of what their customers need to remain successful, not simply sell them technology for the sake of itself.

“It’s almost like prompt engineering. You need to ask the right questions to get to what businesses actually want to see change in their organizations. Those goals are what you should actually start from,” said Pugh.

Pugh adds that he always recommends clients start at the end, with the outcomes they want to achieve, then determine how to measure achieving that goal and work backwards from there to determine things like technology adoption.

He adds that events like AWS re:Invent mirror those conversations, in that PwC ensures team members from a variety of backgrounds and experiences are available to talk through the myriad pain points a customer might experience.

“It really is the ability to talk in a holistic way and within the realities we’re all living in, whether it’s technology adoption or global sovereignty issues or even geopolitics,” Pugh said.

How AI adoption is shifting from experimentation to enterprise-wide transformation

As with most organizations in the channel and tech broadly, PwC has its sights set on massive growth next year as AI demand continues. To Pugh, though, the conversation will shift in 2026 away from the ‘what do I use AI for’ debate into one that understands the digital transformation potential of entire organizations.

Pugh also adds that expectations relating to AI are high, and the speed of adoption and innovation are faster than other tech cycles have been. All of those factors combine to create a perfect storm, of sorts, through which enterprises need to determine what the return on investment (ROI) for tech should actually be in the age of AI.

“I would answer those who question the ROI on AI by asking them how they define ROI, and I think honestly how we understand that has changed,” said Pugh. “It’s more than just a specific use case and the investment return on that one thing. It’s thinking through things as large as, ‘it’s bringing forward an idea that might have not existed without these tools,’ and thinking about how wide of an impact that can have holistically.” 

PwC, for its part, is also an adopter themselves of this way of thinking, Pugh says, and commits to utilizing AI throughout the organization.

“We made a conscious choice that we were going to be a tech-enabled firm even before AI, and we are very confident in our guardrails and security approach so that we can trust our team to experiment and play around with, so to speak, the tech,” Pugh said. 

Where PwC sees growth opportunities in cloud, AI and strategic alliances for 2026

Pugh leads alliances with AWS and several other key partners, including Microsoft, Google CLoud, SAP, and others. While he emphasizes the company is in a strong position with all of them, Pugh says he doesn’t plan on resting on that success in 2026.

“I feel very good about the collaboration and trust we have built with our longstanding partners,” Pugh said. “That said, though, we have to continue to evolve. Next year we’re going to focus on who the players are coming up in the market that will complement the broader landscape and the larger partnerships we hold.”

“I couldn’t be prouder of where we have come, of course, but I know it is a constant journey of growth in this industry,” he added.

To Pugh, everything at PwC is interconnected to some degree. As the company leverages partnerships to bring complementary solutions to clients, it is also exploring ways to use those solutions internally, and then further drive success with customers. He says the company decided early it wouldn’t wait for change to come, but rather influence how that change impacts opportunities for PwC.

“We can be a driver of change or a recipient of the change. We’ve chosen to be the drivers,” Pugh said.

Key takeaways

• PwC and AWS are deepening their partnership to deliver complementary cloud, AI, and IT services solutions for global enterprises.
• Enterprise clients increasingly expect holistic, outcomes-driven strategies rather than standalone technology purchases.
• AI adoption is shifting from isolated use cases to broad organizational transformation, accelerating into 2026.
• Traditional ROI models are evolving as AI introduces faster innovation cycles and wider business impact.
• PwC is positioning for growth by expanding alliances, exploring emerging partners, and applying its own AI-enabled strategies internally.
• Stronger collaboration across partners, industries, and technologies is becoming essential as enterprise needs grow more complex.