Amazon is reportedly looking to revamp its AI strategy, shifting from a wide portfolio of models for text, images, video, and multimodal tasks toward a single frontier model.
The ecommerce giant has been one of the main beneficiaries of the AI boom, with developers investing heavily in compute capacity from AWS. However, it has not seen similar gains in the AI model market, with several of its flagship models trailing the industry leaders in revenue and market share.
Amazon plans to deprecate several models, including Premier and Omni, the Canvas image-generation model, and the Reel video-generation model, according to a report by Business Insider. These could be consolidated into a single multimodal frontier model, potentially still under the Nova brand.
“As with any AI portfolio, we continually evolve our model lineup based on what customers need,” an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters. “We’re continuing to invest in and support the Nova models our customers rely on today. We’re also investing in the next generation of frontier model research.”
Amazon has also reduced headcount within its artificial general intelligence organization, according to. The cuts could support a more concentrated development strategy, although Amazon has not said that it is scaling back its broader ambitions to build frontier models in-house.
What's hot at TechRepublic
- Blackpoint Cyber vs. Arctic Wolf: Which MDR Solution is Right for You?
- Why AWS Sellers Choose Deepgram Over Other Voice AI Tools
- SS&C Intralinks DealCentre AI vs. Datasite: Which platform is built for the future of dealmaking?
- SS&C Intralinks FundCentre AI vs. Juniper Square: Which platform better supports modern private markets fund managers?
- Verito vs. Rightworks: Which IT Provider Is Best for Your Firm?
Why AWS infrastructure may remain Amazon’s stronger AI play
Amazon, like Microsoft, has spent billions maintaining close relationships with leading AI developers OpenAI and Anthropic. It has invested $25 billion in Anthropic, alongside agreements that ensure the company uses AWS for some of its compute capacity, and has earmarked a further $20 billion for investment over time.
Amazon also brought GPT and Codex to AWS in April, ending Microsoft’s exclusivity over the models. This came shortly after Amazon finalized a $50 billion investment in OpenAI.
AWS revenue rose 28% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, reflecting continued demand for cloud and AI infrastructure, according to Amazon. Although that growth trailed Google Cloud and Oracle, AWS remains substantially larger by revenue.
However, like Microsoft, Amazon still wants its own portfolio of AI models for internal use and for sale to cloud customers. It recently expanded its Connect platform with four agentic services covering supply chain planning, recruitment, customer engagement, and healthcare administration.
The strategic retreat could also affect hardware products and services still in development. Amazon had reportedly been planning an AI-native smartphone that would allow users to access Alexa directly through the device, while plans for additional Alexa+ smart devices may also be reconsidered.
For AWS customers, the shift could mean Amazon focuses more heavily on supplying the infrastructure and third-party models they already use, rather than competing across every part of the AI market itself.
Also read: Amazon Raises $25 Billion in Bond Sale as AI Spending Accelerates