Amazon has introduced ‘Q’, an AI-powered chatbot specifically tailored for business applications.
Q, which is now available in public preview at a starting price of $20 per user per year, is built on 17 years of accumulated AWS knowledge. It is designed to assist AWS customers by providing answers to complex queries like, “How do I build a web application using AWS?” The chatbot offers a list of potential solutions, each accompanied by reasons, making it a comprehensive tool for problem-solving.
Adam Selipsky, AWS CEO, highlighted the ease of interaction with Q during his presentation. He pointed out that Q is not just a question-answering tool but a comprehensive assistant informed by an understanding of a company’s systems, data repositories, and operations. Businesses can customize Q by integrating it with their specific apps and software, such as Salesforce, Jira, Zendesk, Gmail, and Amazon S3 storage instances. This customization allows Q to index all connected data and content, enabling it to learn about a business’s unique organizational structures, core concepts, and product names.
The capabilities of Q extend beyond answering questions. It can generate or summarize content, including blog posts, press releases, and emails. Additionally, Q can perform actions on behalf of users through configurable plugins. These actions include creating service tickets, notifying teams in Slack, and updating dashboards in ServiceNow. To ensure accuracy and prevent errors, Q requires users to review and approve actions before they are executed.
Q’s integration with other Amazon services, such as AWS Supply Chain and QuickSight, a business analytics service, further enhances its utility. In these applications, Q can offer visualization options for business reports, reformat them automatically, or provide detailed analyses on data referenced in reports. For Amazon Connect, Amazon’s contact center software, Q now powers customer service agents with proposed responses and follow-up actions, streamlining the customer support process.
Security and privacy are paramount in Q’s design. Selipsky emphasized that Q’s responses and actions are fully controllable and filterable, ensuring that it only returns information that a user is authorized to see. Admins can restrict sensitive topics and filter out inappropriate content, addressing concerns about data security and privacy.
Q’s introduction is a response to the growing demand for AI-driven solutions in business environments. It competes with similar offerings like Microsoft’s Copilot for Azure and Google Cloud’s Duet AI. However, Q’s comprehensive range of features, from business intelligence to programming and configuration, sets it apart.
