AWS, Google, Microsoft Face Off In Gartner’s Cloud AI Developer Services Report

From Microsoft Azure AI and Google Vertex AI to OpenAI GPT and IBM watsonx, here are the world’s top 10 cloud AI developer services ranked in Gartner’s new report.

As the AI era gets underway, the largest and most innovative cloud companies in the world are investing heavily in developer services to deliver the promised benefits of artificial intelligence.

From cloud leaders AWS and Google to AI superstars like OpenAI and H2O.ai, there are 10 companies that stand out from the crowd thanks to offering an end-to-end platform to design, develop, deploy and monitor language, vision and tabular AI models.

The 10 companies ranked in Gartner’s new 2024 Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services report include Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google, H2O.ai, Huawei Cloud, IBM, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and Tencent Cloud.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Ranking Methodology

Gartner defines cloud AI developer services (CAIDS) as cloud-hosted or containerized services and products that enable software developers—who are not data science experts—to use AI models via APIs, software development kits or applications.

To be listed on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, vendors needed core capabilities to include automated machine learning around data preparation, feature engineering and model building and model management for language, vision and tabular use cases. Optional capabilities included AI code models and AI assistants.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services ranks vendors on their ability to execute and completeness of vision and places them in four categories: Niche Players (low on vision and execution), Visionaries (good vision but low execution), Challengers (good execution but low vision) and Leaders (excelling in both vision and execution).

CRN takes a deep dive into the world’s top 10 cloud AI developer services companies and products that are paving the way for artificial intelligence, as well as each vendor’s strength and weakness in the CAIDS market according to Gartner.

Leader: Amazon Web Services

Cloud AI Products: Bedrock, SageMaker, CodeWhisperer

AWS won the gold medal for execution in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services and ranks No. 4 for vision.

The Seattle-based cloud giant’s cloud AI developer services offerings, which include Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Bedrock and Amazon CodeWhisperer, help developers to use AI across the use cases of image, language, tabular and AI code assistance. AWS provides prebuilt and vertical-specific AI and ML offerings, including AWS HealthScribe within its SageMaker JumpStart library.

Strength: AWS offers industry-specific tooling across various sectors, including finance, insurance, health care and manufacturing. This allows AWS to effectively meet the unique needs of customers in these industries.

Weakness: Gartner said AWS must prioritize the emergence and development of AI agents so that organizations can leverage GenAI-powered orchestration across systems and processes.

Leader: Microsoft

Cloud AI Products: Azure AI, GitHub Copilot

The world’s largest software company won the gold medal for vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, while also ranking in second place for execution.

Microsoft’s offerings are Azure AI platform for language, vision and tabular use cases and GitHub Copilot, which has captured much of the early market for AI code assistants. Microsoft’s platform offers support for spoken languages and dialects in its language tools, as well as video analysis and image model customization.

Strength: Microsoft GitHub Copilot offers content filtering to ensure that the generated code does not infringe on intellectual property. Microsoft’s presence in China sets it apart from most U.S.-based companies.

Weakness: Gartner said Microsoft doesn’t offer a comprehensive portfolio of vertical and industry solutions when compared with other market leaders. Microsoft needs to invest more resources in innovating its first-party models such as Phi-2 and Florence, according to Gartner.

Leader: Google

Cloud AI Product: Vertex AI

Google won the bronze medal for both execution and for vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Google’s Vertex AI provides language, vision, video, tabular data and AI code assistant services. Google offers multiple LLMs, including multimodal models and model families for enterprise workloads. Its vertical-specific offerings include models, AI applications and APIs designed for specific industry use cases.

Strength: Vertex AI stands out for its extensive language support offered through a portfolio of prebuilt APIs and capabilities for summarization, classification and generation of natural language via Google’s language models.

Weakness: Google’s product portfolio is vast, as it owns and develops IP at every layer of the stack, which can make it difficult to navigate, Gartner said. Google’s other innovations, such as Gemini, are still maturing.

Leader: IBM

Cloud AI Product: watsonx

IBM ranks No. 4 for execution on the Magic Quadrant and near the middle of the pack for vision.

IBM’s watsonx combines language, vision, tabular data and AI code assistance services for building and deploying AI solutions in hybrid, multi-cloud environments. IBM invests in the watsonx platform in areas like AI governance, automation and support for enterprise-level integrations, as well as in products such as watsonx Code Assistant.

Strength: IBM’s marketing strategy effectively communicates the value of its offerings, which attract a diverse range of customers. IBM focuses on content creation, contributing to open source and supporting cloud neutrality.

Weakness: IBM watsonx Code Assistant products are currently limited to targeted use cases, according to Gartner. Watsonx Code Assistant was purpose-built for COBOL, Java coding and modernization efforts, and for Ansible configuration.

Challenger: Alibaba Cloud

Cloud AI Product: Visual Intelligence Platform

Alibaba Cloud ranks No. 5 for execution but near the bottom for vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Alibaba’s offering spans language, vision, tabular and AI coding assistant services. The company’s Visual Intelligence Platform offers image recognition and video generation capabilities.

Strength: Alibaba Cloud offers freemium tools, tiered plans and consumption-based pricing, which make its services both accessible and affordable for a wide range of customers.

Weakness: Alibaba needs a more in-depth vertical industry understanding of its target audience’s needs so it can provide more tailored product offerings, Gartner said. In addition, the company needs more responsible AI capabilities, such as offering an automated bias detection service.

Visionary: H2O.ai

Cloud AI Product: H2O AI Cloud

H2O.ai ranks No. 5 in vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant but near the bottom for execution.

The H2O AI Cloud provides end-to-end AI life-cycle development, management and deployment of AI models and applications. The company supports flexible deployment options across its language, vision and tabular services. H2O.ai’s open-source h2oGPT platform enables developers to host local LLMs and vector databases.

Strength: H2O.ai allows customers to choose when to adopt new versions of APIs and services versus mandating updates. In addition, the company provides broad geographic coverage via its open-source tools and by offering customers flexibility to decide where models and applications are deployed.

Weakness: The company has fewer resources to invest in R&D, has limited staff across its supported regions, and generates less revenue than the larger cloud providers in this market, according to Gartner.

Visionary: OpenAI

Cloud AI Product: GPT

The AI superstar, which helped usher in the new era of generative AI, won the silver medal for vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. However, the startup ranked last for execution.

OpenAI’s cloud AI developer services offerings include models and services such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 with Vision, ChatGPT, DALL-E and Whisper. OpenAI has achieved extensive venture capital and rapid adoption of its technology with startups, enterprises and through partnerships.

Strength: OpenAI’s vision is a driving force in the overall market. Its innovation in the areas like LLMs—such as GPT-4 with Vision, agents and democratization—has set the stage for the last two years. OpenAI Playground has also set a benchmark for other vendors in this market.

Weakness: OpenAI offers few methods for customers to request support, with current and potential customers citing concerns about its response times. Gartner said OpenAI receives below-average customer experience scores from users, especially regarding its associated costs.

Niche Player: Huawei Cloud

Cloud AI Product: ModelArts

The China-based cloud company’s ModelArts provides language, vision, tabular and AI code assistant services. Its language, vision and tabular services and models can be hosted in its cloud, at the edge or deployed on-premises. Huawei offers the Pangu family of industry-specific foundation models, as well as enterprise knowledge management and intelligent decision making.

Huawei Cloud ranks in the middle of the pack for both execution and vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Strength: Huawei Cloud differentiates its platform by offering strong vision services capabilities for emotion detection and the ability to generate answers to questions about images using its Pangu multimodal models.

Weakness: The company’s platform lacks some privacy features that enterprises expect from AI solutions, although it’s part of Huawei’s strategic product road map, Gartner said.

Niche Player: Oracle

Cloud AI Product: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure AI

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure AI offers vision, image, tabular and AI code assistance. Oracle released new services for language that use generative AI and also released an AI code assistant for SQL for database administration and querying. Oracle’s ML-enabled optical character recognition service supports all basic functionalities.

Oracle ranks near the bottom for both vision and execution on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Strength: Oracle offers free training and certifications for the community, along with reference architectures and tech exchange articles. It also provides customers with a Slack channel for communication, strong SLAs and 24x7 support.

Weakness: Oracle doesn’t offer text-to-speech capabilities in its language services. The company also has yet to establish strong video analysis and image generation capabilities in its vision services, according to Gartner.

Niche Player: Tencent Cloud

Cloud AI Product: Tencent AI

Tencent AI provides an AI code assistant, vision, language and tabular data services. Its AI vision capabilities have been accelerated by its knowledge and access to its WeChat social media application. Tencent Cloud has increased its AI capabilities for vertical-specific use cases with solutions for child care, cybersecurity and manufacturing.

Tencent Cloud ranks last for vision on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and near bottom for execution

Strength: Tencent Cloud shows strong sales execution, and the pricing of its AI services is competitive. The company also gives customers the flexibility to decide when to adopt new versions of AI services.

Weakness: Tencent Cloud needs to develop additional capabilities in bias detection and responsible AI, Gartner said. The company also has room to expand its portfolio of industry solutions.

===