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IBM and AWS expand partnership to accelerate generative AI adoption in Africa
IBM announced an expansion of its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help more clients operationalise and derive value from generative artificial intelligence (AI). As part of this expansion, IBM Consulting aims to deepen and expand its generative AI expertise on AWS by training 10,000 consultants by the end of 2024. The two organisations also plan to deliver joint solutions and services upgraded with generative AI capabilities designed to help clients across critical use cases.
Generative AI holds exciting potential to drive transformation and boost productivity in Africa. According to a recent IBM report, CEO Decision-Making in the Age of AI, 69% of African CEO’s see the broad benefits of generative AI across their organisation, while in the Middle East, 43% of CEOs are currently leveraging generative AI for strategic decision-making.
IBM Consulting and AWS already serve clients across a variety of industries with a range of AI solutions and services. Now, the companies are enhancing those solutions and services with the power of generative AI designed to help clients integrate AI quickly into business and IT operations building on AWS.
Initial solutions
Contact centre modernisation with Amazon Connect. IBM Consulting worked with AWS to create summarisation and categorisation functions for voice and digital interactions using generative AI, which are designed to allow for transfers between the chatbot and live agent and provide the agent with summarised details that expedite resolution times and improve quality management.
Platform services on AWS. The new generative AI capabilities give clients tools to enhance business serviceability and availability for their applications hosted on AWS through intelligent issue resolution and observability techniques. Clients can expect an improvement of uptime and mean time repair which means they can act quickly and effectively to potential issues that arise.
Supply Chain Ensemble on AWS. This planned offering will introduce a virtual assistant that can help accelerate and augment the work of supply chain professionals as they aim to deliver on customer expectations, optimise inventories, reduce costs, streamline logistics, and assess supply chain risks.
Additionally, for clients looking to modernise on AWS, IBM Consulting plans to integrate AWS generative AI services into its proprietary IBM Consulting Cloud Accelerator to help accelerate the cloud transformation process. This will help with reverse engineering, code generation and code conversion.
Commitment to deepening expertise
IBM has built extensive expertise with AWS generative AI services such as Amazon SageMaker, Amazon CodeWhisperer and Amazon Bedrock, and is one of the first AWS Partners to use them for client innovation. The AI pioneer plans to train 10,000 consultants on AWS generative AI services by the end of 2024 and make watsonx.data, watsonx.ai and watsonx.governance available on AWS.
"As we expand our collaboration with AWS in the region, IBM remains committed to delivering cutting-edge generative AI solutions and expertise that will redefine how businesses operate in the region," said Bill Farrell, managing partner at IBM Consulting in MEA.
"Through joint solutions, dedicated AWS training, and the integration of IBM watsonx, we are empowering businesses in the region to harness the full potential of responsible AI, fostering innovation and driving business transformation with a human-centric approach."
Additionally, IBM is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with over 22,000 AWS certifications globally and has achieved 17 AWS Service Delivery and 16 AWS Competency designations.
Today’s news builds on this longstanding relationship and a shared value of the importance of enterprise AI. Getting to enterprise AI at scale requires a human-centric, principled approach, and IBM Consulting helps clients establish guardrails that align with the organisation’s values and standards, mitigate bias and manage data security, lineage, and provenance.
"Our strengthened partnership with IBM signifies a milestone in bringing advanced AI capabilities to businesses across the Middle East. By collaborating with IBM, we are not only enhancing our offerings but also empowering clients with dedicated expertise," Yasser Hassan, head of AWS in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey said.
"The upgraded joint solutions, including Contact Centre Modernisation and Platform Services on AWS, showcase our joint commitment to delivering value and innovation. AWS is proud to be at the forefront of shaping the future of AI in the Middle East, providing businesses with the tools they need to thrive in the digital age."
