This week was all about AWS re:Invent, the biggest cloud conference of the year — which also makes it by definition, these days, one of the biggest AI conferences of the year.
The headlines from our 20 or so stories plus more interviews from theCUBE tell the story. But the gist is that if CEO Matt Garman (pictured) didn’t knock everyone’s socks off, he made a pretty good case that Amazon’s in solid shape for seizing the AI and especially agent opportunity in multiple ways — especially when it comes to who’s eventually going to spend the biggest bucks: enterprises.
The massive crowds at the Venetian suggest a lot of customers are game. Or at least that they’re looking to cash in on everything AI and they figure AWS is a prime place to do that.
And Amazon isn’t the only empire to strike back on the AI front. A surging Google apparently has put a scare into OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who called a “code red” to try to keep his company in the AI lead.
So Netflix finally did it: It’s acquiring Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion, wresting the deal away from David Ellison and Paramount. If exclusive deal talks work out and it passes antitrust muster, no sure thing with Trump in the White House, that’s a huge deal with huge implications for all of media.
Databricks is in talks to raise a few billion dollars more, in what feels like, what, a Series X round? Why is CEO Ali Ghodsi so allergic to going public? Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei certainly doesn’t seem to be, as it reportedly hired a lawyer to get ready.
In a mixed bag for enterprise earnings, Salesforce’s growth slowed but its AI efforts gained some steam, while Snowflake slipped on slowing sales as well. HPE fell as customer delays buying AI servers (!) also slowed sales. But UiPath gained momentum on its agentic AI management push and MongoDB rallied big on sales momentum following several new AI initiatives.
Next week Oracle and Broadcom earnings will offer more insight into the state of enterprise software and hardware.
Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news from News and beyond:
Special Report: News and analysis from AWS re:Invent
Deeper dives:
Exclusive: AWS CEO Matt Garman declares a new era: Agents are the new cloud AWS is prepping a systematic rearchitecture of the cloud for a world where billions of agents operate across industries.
‘Why not?’ At re:Invent, AWS answers with big step into frontier AI model reasoning and agentic services
Build without limits: AWS outlines an easier path for agentic AI deployment
Agentic infrastructure takes center stage in AWS’ evolving cloud strategy: theCUBE keynote analysis from re:Invent
Five thoughts from CEO Matt Garman’s keynote at AWS re:Invent AWS preps itself for the new age of work in which people and agents work together.
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels foresees rise of the ‘renaissance developer’ in his final keynote at AWS re:Invent
AWS showcases AI factories, models, chips and agents to drive its core infrastructure strategy
AWS broadens its approach to agentic development
A few thoughts from five keynotes and a dozen interviews with AWS executives, engineers, scientists and customers:
* Garman made a strong case that it can help “industrialize” AI and agents in enterprises as well as or better than anyone. The emphasis I heard over and over from him and other execs is how AWS’ big advantage is owning the whole infrastructure stack for AI, so it can optimize it in multiple ways. “We’re really well-positioned to do any AI workloads,” Rahul Kulkarni, GM of product management for AWS compute and AI infrastructure, told me. “We own the stack from the custom silicon layer to the rack. We have fine-grained control of the entire stack.” Of course, Google could say something similar, but AWS remains the largest cloud with the tools and massive customer signal, so it’s not a stretch when Garman claims it’s the best place to do AI.
* At the base layer, the chips, new and forthcoming Trainium AI chips and Graviton processors, as well as its Nitro chips for offloading networking and security from those processors, remain a core focus. They’re popular with AWS customers, even if there’s no AWS rockstar like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to whip up outside enthusiasm, but it’s also true that they lack some of the deep software libraries that make Nvidia GPUs so dominant.
* Even if AWS’ Nova models, several new versions of which it debuted at re:Invent, aren’t yet threatening OpenAI or Anthropic, researchers are doing interesting work to make AI models better and more reliable. Byron Cook, a VP and distinguished scientist at AWS, told me about several ways it has incorporated strategies such as automated reasoning and neurosymbolic AI into AWS products to reduce not only hallucinations but all manner of erroneous model behavior by using mathematical proofs. Hallucinations are great for surfacing new ideas, he noted, so they’re something of a feature as much as a bug. “If it’s a poem, they’re great,” he said. “But if it’s ‘will this building stand or not stand,’” not so much.
* Nova Forge, the new service that allows companies to build their own custom models, is more important than the relatively scant coverage indicates. AWS is betting, sensibly, that enterprises will want their own custom AI models, fed by their own proprietary data. There won’t be one model to rule them all, and the more there are, the more there are to run on AWS and the more customers need cloud services such as Amazon’s vast array to create, manage and run them.
* Has AWS proved it’s “back” in AI? Not yet. Nova models still aren’t going to sway many people from OpenAI and Anthropic anytime soon. Some products such as Bedrock and Trainium, and especially its Nova models, have not yet proved they have caught up to Google’s and OpenAI’s services and models in usage or performance.
* Agents, with the need for many tools and orchestration software to make them work beyond proofs-of-concept, may provide a new opening for AWS. As Garman put it: “This is where you’re starting to see material returns in your investments. It’s turning from a technical wonder to something that’s producing real business.”
* But the bottom line is that it’s clear Amazon is fully engaged on the AI opportunity now, working hard on upgrading everything from chips to models to developer tools. And as Google recently has shown, there’s room and time to catch up to the leaders, especially for the leading cloud provider where a large chunk of customers’ data and applications already resides.
All the big news:
AWS introduces Nova Forge for training bespoke ‘Novella’ frontier models Enterprises would love and perhaps require custom AI models for all kinds of processes, based on their own data and workflows. Although AWS folks admit there’s a steep learning curve here, it seems like a smart bet.
AWS expands Nova foundation models, adds multimodal support
AWS simplifies AI agent customization with automated reinforcement learning
AWS puts Kiro and other AI agents to work on truly autonomous software development
Amazon introduces Kiro powers for cleaner, context-aware AI-driven development
AWS brings sovereign AI on-prem with new AI Factories alongside Trainium3 and Nvidia GB300 launches
AWS debuts Graviton5, a powerful and efficient custom CPU for cloud workloads
Amazon rolls out Nova Act for AI browser agents, combined with 1Password credential security
Nvidia and AWS expand partnership with specialized AI hardware and software
AWS unveils EKS capabilities to reinvent Kubernetes operations as AI workloads surge
AWS rolls out Security Agent and strengthens GuardDuty and Security Hub at re:Invent 2025
Salt Security launches ‘Ask Pepper AI’ to simplify API risk analysis
Skyhawk Security adds agentic AI to validate cloud defenses in real time
And our many unsponsored editorial interviews at the event on theCUBE:
New AWS releases show how agentic agents are entering real operations
Nova Forge aims to close AI’s domain knowledge gap with customizable frontier models
AWS bets on S3 Vectors as AI agents reshape the demands of storage
Sovereign cloud emerges as a defining force in modern AI adoption, says Greylock’s Jerry Chen
Beyond bug detection: Inside the rise of self-fixing developer tools
More stores are ditching checkout lines as AWS’ Just Walk Out tech gains steam
AI agents reshape expectations for data connectivity as Salesforce expands its ecosystem strategy
AWS and SentinelOne double down on security as AI agents widen the attack surface
For AI-native applications, scalability — not just latency — is the true enterprise challenge
Data-centric architectures emerge as the new battleground in intelligent automation
From lift-and-shift to one-and-done: Inside AWS’ agentic cloud modernization push
AWS bets on agentic AI to power the next-gen contact center
The AI boom is pushing companies toward deeper multicloud integration
AI complexity fuels new demand for deeper observability frameworks
More to come…
AI and data: Suddenly AI looks wide open again
Analysis and food for thought
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly declares ‘code red’ after rivals launch new AI models
Microsoft lowers AI software sales quota as customers resist new products, The Information reports Hmm. But Microsoft pushed back.
Studies find AI chatbots have the persuasive power to change political opinions
New York Times escalates battle against Perplexity with new lawsuit
Google sees 3.2 times more pages on the internet than OpenAI, 4.6 times more than Microsoft, and 4.8 times more than Anthropic or Meta does, says Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince (per Wired)
Money matters
Databricks reportedly in talks to raise $5B at $134B valuation
OpenAI acquires AI tooling provider Neptune to enhance its model training workflows
Anthropic reportedly preparing for one of the largest IPOs ever in race
Meta acquires Sam Altman-backed AI wearable startup Limitless
Open-source image generator startup Black Forest Labs raises $300M
Anthropic makes first acquisition with purchase of Bun to accelerate Claude Code
AI-focused legal startup Harvey raises $160M to expand platform capabilities
Audio language model startup Gradium raises $70M to create more realistic voice AI systems
Vinci nabs $46M to speed up chip simulations with AI
Ricursive Intelligence launches frontier AI lab with $35M funding to transform semiconductor design
Lemurian Labs raises $28M for its efficiency-optimized AI model compiler
Pine secures $25M in Series A funding to free consumers of digital chores
Retail operations automation startup Duvo raises $15M
AI startup Vambe raises $14M to automate conversational commerce
Unlimited Industries raises $12M to transform infrastructure construction
Curvestone AI raises $4M to bring reliable agentic automation to regulated industries
Soxton emerges with $2.5M to build lawyer-in-the-loop AI for startup legal work
New models and services
Runway, DeepSeek release new foundation models
Google launches Workspace Studio to let users build AI agents for everyday work
Pinecone scales its vector database to support more demanding workloads
Stack Overflow launches AI Assist chatbot for developers
TurinTech launches preview of Artemis, a structured AI software engineering platform
Salesforce targets nonprofits with its agentic enterprise vision
Identity verification startup Incode launches Deepsight to detect deepfake video calls
Prophecy accelerates data pipeline construction with quick-start AI agents
Prior Labs debuts tabular AI foundation model that scales to 10 million rows
Fortanix joins HPE and Nvidia to advance confidential enterprise AI
How Atlassian’s System of Work has become the engine for innovation at Williams Racing
Around the enterprise: Chipping away
Analysis
TPUv7: Google takes a swing at the king SemiAnalysis’ take on how Nvidia has yet another contender to the throne besides AMD. And that’s not even counting Amazon’s increasingly capable Trainiums and Gravitons.
Money matters
Marvell bets big on optical interconnects, buying Celestial AI for up to $5.5B
Intel scraps plan to spin off NEX networking chip business
Nvidia invests $2B in Synopsys as part of multiyear AI collaboration
Cloud backup startup Eon raises $300M at $4B valuation
Axiado raises $100 million for chip to save space, power in AI data centers
David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s man in the White House, is benefiting himself and his friends (per the New York Times) Grifters all.
Akamai acquires WebAssembly function-as-a-service startup Fermyon
Earnings:
Salesforce’s AI bets gain momentum, but overall growth remains sluggish
Snowflake’s stock slips on slowing sales as it expands Anthropic deal
UiPath beats expectations as it doubles down on agentic AI orchestration
MongoDB rallies on better-than-expected earnings and raised full-year outlook
HPE misses revenue targets as AI server sales slide on customer delays
Shares of Pure Storage sink after earnings results fail to impress
Cyber providers CrowdStrike and Okta post solid quarters but fail to impress investors
Rubrik shares surge on strong earnings and outlook as SentinelOne slides on weak guidance
Box’s Q3 revenue rises 9% while earnings fall 31%, lifting stock
Disappointing guidance tanks GitLab shares
Asana shares rise after strong Q3 earnings and upgraded forecast
C3 AI’s earnings beat expectations, stock rises
Samsara beats earnings expectations with 29% revenue growth, shares slip
Docusign stock slides as earnings beat fails to impress
Domo shares tumble as earnings results fail to impress
New products and services
HPE broadly expands AI-native networking, hybrid cloud and storage offerings
Aruba meets Juniper Mist: At Discover, HPE unveils Its unified AI-native network brain
Artificial Superintelligence Alliance members launch first cloud GPU cluster to power decentralized AI
Cyber beat: ServiceNow moves deeper into security
Money matters
ServiceNow to acquire Veza in move to expand identity security portfolio
7AI raises $130M to automate cybersecurity investigations with AI agents
Zafran Security nabs $60M for its vulnerability management platform
Imper.ai launches with $28M to stop AI-powered impersonation attacks
Lumia Security raises $18M to bring governance and control to enterprise AI agents
Helmet Security lands $9M to protect enterprises from MCP-based AI security risks
New services
Box launches Shield Pro with agentic AI for automated content security
Netskope adds MCP security controls to protect enterprise AI agents
Sumo Logic expands Dojo AI with new agentic tools for modern security operations
SandboxAQ launches new service to tackle shadow AI security risks
Hack The Box debuts HTB AI Range to test AI and human cyber defense side by side
Movius launches CoreLine to embed secure communications directly into enterprise SIM devices
Elsewhere in tech: Netflix’s blockbuster Warner Bros. deal
Netflix to acquire key Warner Bros. assets in blockbuster $72B deal
SpaceX reportedly seeking $800B valuation ahead of 2026 IPO
Security device startup Verkada raises funding at $5.8B valuation
Tutor Intelligence raises $34M to scale fleet of AI-powered warehouse robots
Comings and goings: Musical chairs at Apple
Meta reportedly could let go 30% of its metaverse unit’s workforce
Apple named former Microsoft, Google executive Amar Subramanya to replace current AI chief John Giannandrea.
Apple’s longtime design head Alan Dye joined Meta to lead new creative studio.
Chief revenue officers seem to be in high demand, as Smartsheet tapped Scott Torrey and OutSystems hired Kim Seabrook.
Chief marketing officers too: Joyce Kim headed to Proofpoint and Ryan Shopp landed at Camunda.
Oh, and chief financial officers: Mobile security firm Zimperium appointed Alistaire Davidson CFO and GitLab named Jessica Ross to the same job.
Orca Security named former Check Point Software VP Gera Dorfman chief product officer.
What’s next
Earnings
Wednesday, Dec. 10: Oracle, Adobe, Synopsys
Thursday, Dec. 11: Broadcom
Photos: Robert Hof/ News
Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.
- 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more
- 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network.
About News Media
Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, News Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.
