'ACDC,' 'T2K,' and the Middle East: Leaked documents reveal Amazon's top cloud growth initiatives

• Internal AWS documents obtained by BI lay out the cloud giant's growth priorities next year.
• The company is focusing on at least 7 areas with codenames such as "ACDC" and "T2K."
• AWS faces competition from Microsoft and Google, though it leads the cloud market.

Amazon Web Services recently laid out new growth initiatives that include a focus on healthcare, business applications, generative AI, and the Middle East region, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider.

These are part of the AWS sales team's priorities for next year and Amazon refers to them internally as "AGIs," short for "AWS growth initiatives," one of the internal documents shows.

Greg Pearson, AWS's VP of global sales, recently told employees that these AGIs are designed to drive "needle-moving, incremental revenue" and bring an "array of customers, faster than ever," a separate internal email seen by BI showed.

For AWS, the success of these initiatives is consequential. Competition from Microsoft and Google keeps growing and the rise of generative AI has put more pressure on AWS, particularly its sales team, BI previously reported. The company may share more details on these initiatives next week, when it hosts its annual re:Invent conference.

AWS revenue continued to reaccelerate in the most recent quarter, jumping 19% to $27.5 billion. That was slower than Microsoft's and Google's cloud business, on a percentage basis.

Amazon regularly adds more cloud revenue than its rivals, in absolute dollar terms. And the company still accounts for 30% of the global cloud infrastructure market, ahead of Microsoft's 20% and Google's 12% share, according to Synergy Research Group.

"We obsess over our customers and are proud of the many tailored programs we have in place to help them take advantage of the reliability, scale, and innovative services that AWS has to offer," AWS spokesperson Patrick Neighorn wrote in an email to BI.

Here are 7 of the "AGIs" for 2025 that AWS described in the internal document:

Accelerate to the Cloud from Data Centers (ACDC)

Amazon wants to fast-track customers to AWS's cloud-computing services. Ideal customers are companies that run their own data centers, have strong senior-level relationships with AWS, or have experience with AWS or other cloud-computing services, the document explained.

It added that AWS is "uniquely positioned" to win because it has longer experience in the cloud than competitors and can offer potential customers the right structure and incentives.

AWS Top 2000 (T2K)

AWS is targeting the world's largest companies with multiple billions of dollars in revenue, starting with those on the Forbes Global 2000 list, the document stated. It breaks down customers by contract size and growth stage.

These companies have very large, highly complex technical architectures requiring significant investment and time. AWS wants to customize solutions based on each company and industry, and speed up deals by using external consultants and partners, it added.

Business Applications Acceleration

AWS is focused on "winning the largest Business Application providers" in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) markets.

Many companies still use their own data centers to run business applications from providers such as Salesforce, Adobe, and ServiceNow.

Amazon wants to drive growth by getting more of these applications running on AWS's cloud, the document said.

Long-Range Plan: Middle East

The document lists the Middle East market as one of the top business opportunities. In March, for example, AWS announced plans to invest more than $5 billion in Saudi Arabia.

AWS also launched in Bahrain, the UAE, and Israel in 2019, 2022, and 2023, respectively.

IDC estimates the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to have a cloud infrastructure market opportunity of $2.8 billion in 2024 and $15.5 billion by 2030.

Generative AI Innovation Center

Last year, AWS launched a $100 million program called Generative AI Innovation Center, which connects customers with AWS's AI scientists and experts to help launch generative AI solutions.

AWS plans to lean on this program to help customers build proofs of concept with generative AI and deploy new products, the document said. AWS's spokesperson told BI that more than 50% of the proof-of-concept solutions developed through this program are now in production.

AWS thinks generative AI is still in its "infancy," where customers are caught between "embracing innovation while also needing to play it safe," the document added. But the potential keeps growing, and its customers understand they need to "act fast," it explained.

IT & Application Outsourcing

AWS plans to expand its work external partners, including Accenture and Tata Consultancy, that can sell AWS services to hundreds of their existing customers, the document explained. AWS sees an untapped market worth $250 billion and thousands of contracts up for renewal, it added.

AWS will prioritize these partners' existing customers and proactively reach out to them before contract-renewal time, and help the partners become "cloud-first," the document said.

Epic Growth Initiative

AWS wants to onboard more customers to Epic System's electronic medical record software, hosted on AWS's cloud infrastructure, the document said. AWS and Epic have been close partners for years.

AWS wants to target hundreds of medical providers that use Epic's own data center services, and work with industry partners to "accelerate proactive moves to Epic on AWS," it added.

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