AWS Summit NYC: New AI Playbook, Agents And ROI Funds For Partners

“When we worked with Tower Insurance to improve their contact center performance, the AWS Business Value Realization motion gave us a shared language from day one and a structured way to benchmark, track, and prove outcomes,” said Deloitte’s Nishita Henry.

Thousands of partners, developers and customers flocked to New York City this week for AWS Summit New York City, which was highlighted by Amazon Web Services launching a new AI playbook and innovation for partners to drive AI ROI and business outcomes for Amazon customers.

The Seattle-based $150 billion cloud and AI giant’s new AWS Business Value Realization (BVR) go-to-market motion, new BVR competency and AI agents inside its co-selling ACE program, all aim to heavily incentivize AWS partners to provide tangible outcomes from AI deployments.

“BVR gives partners the framework to close [business outcome] gaps systematically with industry benchmarks, ROI models, change management playbooks, and funding tied directly to customer outcomes,” Bhargs Srivathsan, AWS’ director of customer and partner success, told CRN.

AWS’ new BVR motion grants partners outcome-based funding, playbooks, benchmarks, and specialized support to stay in the room after deployment and prove the investment worked, she said.

Deloitte CCO On AWS Business Value Realization Success

Global consulting juggernaut and top AWS partner Deloitte was one of the pilot partners that was granted access to AWS’ BVR tools and funding. Deloitte worked with Tower Insurance to provide the insurance client with an AI business outcome that saw a 26 percent improvement in call handling time.

Nishita Henry, global chief commercial officer for Deloitte’s Amazon business, said AI is shifting what customers are expecting from channel partners.

[Related: OpenAI Unveils Partner Program, $150M Investment; Channel Chief Sees ‘Massive Opportunity’ Ahead]

“When we worked with Tower Insurance to improve their contact center performance, the AWS Business Value Realization motion gave us a shared language from day one and a structured way to benchmark, track, and prove outcomes,” said Henry in an email to CRN.

“We defined success as call handling time, built the change management journey alongside the technical deployment, and validated a 26 percent improvement that Tower attested to directly,” Deloitte’s Henry said. “BVR complements the knowledge Deloitte already brings with the measurement precision this era demands.”

Compass UOL BVR Win: $2.95 Million And 300 Percent Client RIO

Another top AWS partner that was a BVR pilot was Compass UOL.

Compass UOL worked with Brazilian rewards program company Livelo to deliver 30 percent to 50 percent productivity gains for Livelo, along with a $2.95 million in projected five-year value.

AWS’ Business Value Realization motion gave Compass “a rigorous way” to provide customers an AI ROI “from the start,” according to Dao Jensen, president of Compass UOL.

“With Livelo, we established clear productivity benchmarks, tracked performance throughout deployment, and validated 30 [percent to] 50 percent gains in engineering productivity alongside a 300 percent return on investment—$2.95 million in projected five-year value,” Jensen said in an email to CRN.

“For a company like ours that prides itself on delivering transformation, BVR adds the proof layer that enterprise customers now require before they scale their AI investments,” he said.

AWS’ Srivathsan said the new BVR motion is not about partners delivering milestones for customers, but business outcomes.

“It’s a structured post-deployment framework that ensures customers actually achieve the business outcomes their cloud and AI investments were meant to deliver,” she said.

New BVR Competency; AWS Customers Pay A 20 Percent Premium For Partners

Partners that demonstrate excellence in driving customer outcomes can earn AWS’ new BVR competency.

The BVR competency is an AWS specialization that signals to customers that a partner doesn’t just deploy AI, they deliver business outcomes.

The competency is launching with validated partners such as Boston Consulting Group, Compass UoL, Deloitte, DoIT, Persistent, Quantiphi, Reply, tecRacer, and SoftwareOne.

Srivathsan said AWS customers are willing to pay up to a 20 percent premium for partners with proven outcome-delivery capabilities in the AI era.

“We are launching the BVR Competency to recognize partners who have already proven they can deliver measurable outcomes,” Srivathsan said. “Because in the AI era, the partners who win won’t be the fastest to deploy. They’ll be the ones who can prove it worked.”

Smarter AWS Co-Sell With AI Agents In ACE

Partners who co-sell with AWS are reporting a 65 percent higher close rate and a 54 percent increase in deal sizes, according to Amazon data.

At AWS Summit New York City, the company unveiled that every opportunity submitted into AWS ACE partner program will now receive data-driven insights and real-time support via new AI agents.

“The co-sell model is getting an intelligence layer with Agentic ACE enhancements,” said AWS’ Srivathsan. “An agent qualifies it on arrival and delivers tailored guidance, matching every opportunity to the right motion: AWS Field engagement, agent-qualified deal progression, or partner-led execution.”

AWS ACE program, which stands for Amazon Partner Network Customer Engagements, lets partners securely collaborate and co-sell with AWS teams.

“We’re also introducing lead enrichment with propensity insights and AI-generated sales messaging,” she said.

AWS Summit New York City takes place this week at the Javits Center.