Amazon Web Services is investing $1 billion to build Forward Deploy Engineering (FDE), a new organization that will embed teams of AI engineers directly inside customer operations.

Rather than offering traditional consulting, AWS will deploy small engineering “pods” that can move from idea to production in as little as 45 days, helping organizations build custom AI agents and knowledge systems on-site.

The initiative targets enterprise customers across industries including sports, aviation, finance and government, with partners already including the NFL, NBA, Southwest Airlines, Ricoh, Cox Automotive, and the Allen Institute for AI.

The move signals AWS’s ambition to compete not only as the world’s largest cloud provider, but also as a strategic AI implementation partner for large enterprises.