Ahead in the Cloud: The Role of Cloud in AI with AWS' Allison Ortiz

Chad Watt: Welcome to Ahead in the Cloud where business leaders share what they've learned on their cloud journey. I'm Chad Watt, Infosys Knowledge Institute researcher and writer today here with Allison Ortiz, global leader of Strategic Partner Alliances at AWS. Amazon Web Services is one of the pioneers of cloud computing and one of the big critical providers for global enterprises today. We're going to talk about how that pioneering legacy informs AWS cloud strategy today. Welcome, Allison.

Allison Ortiz: Thanks for having me.

Chad Watt: So, Allison, let's think back for a moment. When did you first hear about cloud computing?

Allison Ortiz: It's quite some time ago. Been in the industry for a long time actually on the customer side, and I was in retail leading IT organizations. And at the time, cloud was met with a lot of fear. Fear from the developers, fear from the business, fear from security, fear from the board of directors on what does that mean. We, all of a sudden, don't have control or the perception of our information, of our data and our applications. And so, in that time period, we talked about needing it to be a to-do list item, similar to a lot of the other initiatives that are happening today. And so that's probably the first time that we started talking about cloud.

Chad Watt: Now, according to our research, cloud, in that period, decade and a half, two decades ago, cloud started out as a place to store your information as a better alternative to a data center. What has changed in the time since those early days of corporate cloud?

Allison Ortiz: At the time, it was focused on cost optimization or there was a triggering event that said your data center was up for renewal, right? And it was a need basis versus a want. So, I think in that timeframe, we've moved from this need and cost optimization only to put it somewhere else into how it can be used to create an environment for agility, for innovation, as well as cost optimization on an ongoing basis. In the past, you would have to overbuy to support surges. Now we have the opportunity to flex based on the needs in that moment, in that time, which changes.

Chad Watt: That's this value of the scalability we have from cloud. And now you said cloud was kind of initially this kind of emergency response saving money, but now it's about cost optimization and agility?

Allison Ortiz: So, we think about what our budgets look like, right? Our budgets, we try not to change them too much, but what we want to do is figure out how to spend our money in a better way. And this is coming from our customers. And so, what we're looking to do is optimize where they're spending their money on their services on the cloud so that we can lower that spend, thereby increasing the amount of money they can spend on innovations to meet their customers where they want to be met, right? So, if that's engaging with me real-time in a retail store to then take my experience out into e-commerce or on my phone when I'm out in the car that says, "You forgot something. This is great. We can deliver." Or if it's in a financial services sector, and how can I help create a better environment for mortgage processing.

Chad Watt: Allison, Infosys, and AWS have been partners for about two decades now. Can you tell me a little bit about how that partnership has evolved over time?

Allison Ortiz: The partnership has been great because we lean in together. And when I say what that means is it's really around how we're leaning in for an industry focus. We are looking at what are the business drivers, not necessarily the IT needs, but the business drivers to add value to the organization first. So, we're taking the expertise from our Infosys partners, from our AWS and Amazon partners, to then say, based on the vertical, "This particular need is driving a focus for optimization around airplane management" and doing something with that.

Chad Watt: That's really interesting in that it strikes me as a very different sort of cloud from those early days of cloud where cloud was the same regardless as if you are an airplane maker, a retailer, or a bank.

Allison Ortiz: It's less IT-driven versus IT-supported. So, what we're looking at is business driving those decisions, which is different. Business owners are driving the decisions for the move to cloud or the use of these technologies, which IT is supporting all of that through the movement from the traditional data centers or even legacy applications to a cloud and more agile solution.

Chad Watt: I want to go a little bit technical. Tell me if this is okay. If you have business leaders driving what cloud is for and asking for business specific capabilities, does that mean you have to bring a different architecture or a different set of integrations to the table?

Allison Ortiz: Sometimes.

Chad Watt: Okay.

Allison Ortiz: That's probably a horrible answer, but it's the truth. And so, what we are doing and what we're seeing in a lot of what Infosys is bringing to the table, frankly, as well as Amazon and AWS, is the use of composable solutions. And so, we're taking these components so that when businesses are deciding to bring in new innovation, they can pick and choose at that moment what makes sense. Versus in the past, you had to do open heart surgery on your applications, which is incredibly disheartening and fearful and risk intense. And so we're looking to see how can we make that in a way that maybe I can't spend all of my time, efforts, money resources to change my whole e-commerce solution at this moment, but I want to do something around loyalty and then I can set myself up for success to continue to innovate at the pace that makes sense for my organization.

Chad Watt: I think we're going to hear more about this composable approach soon. So, for now, tell me what are the major focuses for AWS in 2024? What are you focused on as an organization?

Allison Ortiz: Gen AI always comes up, right? So, I won't go too far into that yet, but with that, we're looking for ways to make that something tangible, real, and valuable, not just a topic of conversation that you have to check off a box. The other thing that we're looking at is this business-led innovation around application monetization. So, we have applications, our customers have applications that are legacy driven that might be limited based on the time that they were implemented. And the way that the market is changing and frankly, the way that the customer demands are changing, we have to help enable them. So, application monetization is another. And then the other area that I'll focus on is data, because without data, I'm going to have a very difficult time doing any of these wonderful things that we just talked about. And so that's really your foundational layer for all of the inputs that you're going to create.

Chad Watt: Data is so critical, and I think that's true when we talk about AI, cloud regulation, privacy requirements. It's going to be a huge fundamental step for touching all these facets of technology.

So, AWS has announced a major focus on gen AI. How do you see yourself working with partners like Infosys? When we talk about generative AI?

Allison Ortiz: I think we have to take away starting the conversation with generative AI and instead start the conversation with what are you hoping to accomplish as a customer? Am I hoping to improve the way I interact with my customers? Am I hoping to improve the employee experience in how they interact with each other, with their customers or them as customers of the organization? Looking at that objective first and then understanding what technologies that include generative AI to accelerate and facilitate that innovation. Because our objective is to make sure, one, we're giving you the tools that you need in order to be successful but doing it timely. What we don't want to do is spend months, years creating a solution that may or may not be relevant at that moment in time, but instead looking to identify proof of concepts, smaller focus areas that we can try and innovate, fail fast if we need to, or success quickly and accelerate that.

Chad Watt: I want to talk a little bit more about cloud and AI. I would observe that all of this generative AI boom has only been made possible and only would've been at this scale because of the cloud scalability to support it and enable it. We've been through the experiment phase, now we've got to get serious about it. What is the role for cloud with AI as we move from the fun phase of experimenting and into actually bringing things into production?

Allison Ortiz: Where cloud is going to help is that scalability that we just talked. Because what we don't know is what's going to happen tomorrow as far as demand. All of a sudden, we could see this big surge because we put out this great solution on generative AI and companies have to be able to adjust and flex to that. And nobody says, "Please do it slower." Nobody says, "I want a poor customer experience," right? So, we are always demanding more real-time, highly personalized interactions and engagements that could be from a customer. Again, that could be in a manufacturing floor, which can be in a CPG community, which could be in logistics and help me with dynamic pricing to help me make better use of my time and resources. But all of that is it's an experiment, right? And so, we have to do that and scale quickly, but we have to be able to adjust quickly as well.

Chad Watt: Great. I'm going to ask you about optimization. There's so much capability that companies can achieve using cloud, but at the same time, they want some clear view and reassurance that their cloud spending is efficient and proper for their organization. How can cloud providers such as AWS partners, such as Infosys, how can cloud providers and partners deliver that kind of reassurance?

Allison Ortiz: Well, there's a couple of ways. One is transparency, right? It's transparency, its communication, it's governance. And what I mean by that is transparency into the usage of all of those resources. It's governance to say, "We're actually creating these metrics" and reporting on them so you can understand, "Hey, we have this much utilization," or "We're going against this budgeted spend. Here are the results." And then finally, it's being able to adjust based on the needs to say, "We thought X. We actually are doing Y. Let's make sure we're adjusting to that accordingly." AWS is also known for reducing its costs, but again, that makes room for all of this innovation and the cool things that are going to differentiate any of our customers to their customers, and that's what makes a difference in their business.

Chad Watt: Allison, you are a woman who is senior in technology. And as much as things have changed over the time we've been working in this world; technology is still a male dominated industry. What is your advice for women who are navigating their own careers and technology today?

Allison Ortiz: A couple of things. One is to build their network and the other is to trust themselves. And so, I'll start with building your network. Building your network is not only about finding your next job, right? It's understanding who are your mentors, who are your sponsors, which is different. Mentor is going to help you guide you in your career. Sponsor is going to help you create new opportunities for growth in your current position or new. Also looking for peers and colleagues to talk about some of the challenges that you may be having and understanding different points of view. So that's one.

But the other part is trusting yourself. I think more often than not, women decide, one, I need to check every box before I do something, and then two, I'm in this constant mode of proving that I belong here, that I belong at the table, that I belong to have this conversation, or that I have the credentials to do this. And the reality is, more often than not, you already have done that in your lifetime. You have the successes to support the great work that you will continue to do. So, if you have a pattern of behavior that shows success, you don't need to prove it every single time. You can actually just focus on the work.

Chad Watt: So, build your network and trust yourself.

Allison Ortiz: Yes.

Chad Watt: Thank you very much for your time today, Allison.

Allison Ortiz: Thank you very much for having me, Chad. I appreciate it.

Chad Watt: This podcast is a part of our collaboration with MIT Tech Review and Infosys Cobalt. Visit our content hub on technologyreview.com to learn more about how businesses across the globe are moving from cloud chaos to cloud clarity. Be sure to follow ahead in the cloud wherever you get your podcasts. You can find details in our show notes and transcripts at infosys.com/iki. It's in our podcast section. Thanks to our producers, Christine Calhoun, and Yulia De Bari. Dode Bigley is our audio technician. And I'm Chad Watt with the Infosys Knowledge Institute signing off. Until next time, keep learning and keep sharing.