Amazon Web Services (AWS) is launching AI Agent Marketplace next week, Anthropic is one of its partners, and TechCrunch is learning exclusively.
The launch of the AWS Agent Marketplace was held at the AWS Summit in New York City on July 15th, with two well-versed development members telling TechCrunch. AWS and Humanity did not respond to requests for comment.
AI agents have been ubiquitous these days. And every Silicon Valley investor is bullish on building a startup, even if there is any discrepancy about what defines an AI agent. The term is somewhat vague and is roughly used to describe computer programs that can use AI models at the backend to make decisions and perform tasks such as interaction with software independently.
AI giants like Openai and Anthropic are promoting it as the next big thing in technology. However, the distribution of AI agents poses challenges as most companies offer it in silos. It appears that AWS is taking a step towards addressing this with a new move.
The company’s dedicated agent marketplace allows startups to provide AI agents directly to AWS customers. The market also allows business customers to view, install and search AI agents based on requirements from a single location, sources say.
It could significantly boost humanity- and other AWS Agent Marketplace partners.
Humanity is already backed by Amazon and reportedly lined up with billions of dollars investments from e-commerce companies, and has seen the future of AI primarily in terms of agents for at least the coming years. Humanity builds AI agents in-house and allows developers to create them using APIs.
AWS’s marketplace helps reach humanity to more customers, including those who may already be using rival AI agents such as Openai. Humanity’s involvement in the market can also attract more developers and create more agents using APIs, and ultimately increase revenue. The company had already hit $3 billion in annual revenue in late May.
Like other online marketplaces, AWS reduces the revenue that startups earn from agent installations. However, this share is minimized compared to the market’s potential to unlock new revenue streams and attract customers.
The market model allows startups to bill customers from agents. This structure is similar to how the market price SaaS instead of bundling its offerings into a wider range of services, one source said.
Amazon is not the first tech giant to provide the market for agents. In April, Google Cloud introduced the AI Agent Marketplace to help developers and businesses buy and sell AI agents. A month later, Microsoft introduced a similar product called the Agent Store within Microsoft 365 Copilot. Similarly, enterprise software providers, including Salesforce and ServiceNow, have their own Agent Marketplace.
That said, it remains to be seen how successful these markets are for small AI startups and businesses looking for specific AI agents.
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