The 10 Biggest AWS News Stories Of 2024 (So Far)

From the abrupt exit of CEO Adam Selipsky to attacking the AI market unlike ever before, here are the 10 most important AWS news stories of 2024 so far that you need to know about.

From the shocking exit of CEO Adam Selipsky to pouring tens of billions of dollars into cloud infrastructure to fuel its AI future, news stories coming out of the world’s largest cloud computing company have been non-stop in 2024.

Amazon Web Services also hit some significant milestones in 2024 that grabbed the IT world’s attention, including reaching a $100 billion annual run rate as well as launching a full-scale attack to win over AI startups companies unlike ever before via free cloud credits.

With generative AI becoming a main focus for the Seattle-based tech giant, AWS is investing in markets it’s not typically known for, such as AI chatbot assistants. The company also this year made a huge decision regarding egress fees for AWS customers.

[Related: AWS’ Cloud Credits Blitz To Win AI Startups: 5 Huge Things To Know]

Before jumping into the 10 biggest AWS news stories of 2024 thus far, it is key to look at AWS financials right now.

In the first quarter of 2024, AWS generated $25 billion in revenue, representing a 17 percent sales increase year over year. The cloud computing company reported operating income of $9.6 billion, making it Amazon’s most profitable business.

AWS remains the world’s No. 1 cloud market leader, owning 31 percent share of the global cloud infrastructure services market, followed by Microsoft at 25 percent share, then Google Cloud at 11 percent share.

Here are the most important news stories from Amazon Web Services in 2024 so far—including selecting Matt Garman as its new CEO—that every partner, investor and customer should know about.

No. 10: Broadcom Cuts Out AWS Partners From VMware Cloud On AWS; AWS ‘Disappointed’

As Broadcom cut VMware ties with many channel partners in 2024, it has also severed many vendor partnerships this year.

One of the biggest was Broadcom’s decision to no longer allow AWS partners to resell VMware Cloud on AWS—forcing customers to have to buy the offering direct from VMware by Broadcom now. Furthermore, Broadcom also disallowed on-demand use of its software in VMware Cloud on AWS.

“VMware Cloud on AWS is no longer directly sold by AWS or its channel partners. It’s that simple,” said Broadcom CEO Hock Tan this year.

AWS told CRN that it is “disappointed that AWS is no longer operating as a VMware Cloud on AWS reseller” but will continue to serve their mutual customers.

Why This Matters: AWS partners are migrating customers off VMware Cloud on AWS as soon as possible with AWS encouraging customers to migrate to Amazon EC2.

No. 9: AWS Reaches $100 Billion Milestone

For the first time in its long history, AWS reached a monumental milestone of generating a $100 billion annual run rate in 2024.

In the first quarter of 2024, the company increased revenue by 17 percent year over year to $25 billion.

AWS has been growing quarterly sales in the teens year over year for the past several quarters. However, Amazon CEO—and former AWS CEO—Andy Jassy said his cloud company is just getting started.

“We’re at $100 billion-plus annualized revenue run rate, yet 85 percent or more of the global IT spend remains on premises,” Jassy said. “And this is before we even calculate GenAI, most of which will be created over the next 10 to 20 years from scratch and on the cloud. There's a very large opportunity in front of us.”

Why This Matters: AWS will likely never again generate less than $100 billion in sales every year with top executives believing there’s still huge growth ahead for AWS thanks to AI.

No. 8: AWS Investing Hundreds Of Millions Into Luring AI Startup With Cloud Credits

AWS is putting the full-court press on its top AI rivals Microsoft and Google by giving hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cloud credits to startups as AWS seeks to win the wallet-share of the hottest customers in the world right now: AI startups.

AWS recently doubled its cloud credits offering to startups from $100,000 to $200,000 inside its AWS Activate program with the hopes to entice AI startups to build on AWS cloud infrastructure.

The cloud giant also recently committed $230 million to expand its Generative AI Accelerator startup program with startups having the opportunity to receive up to $1 million in cloud credits.

Cloud credits eliminate the huge financial barrier for many startups by offsetting costs for critical IT like compute storage, AI and more.

Why This Matters: Every cloud company in the world is trying to win over AI startups as their customers so the next great AI products are built on their cloud infrastructure. AWS is seeking the easiest on-ramp for AI startups by investing heavily, via free cloud credits, to win in the AI era.

No. 7: AWS Launches Amazon Q, Its First GenAI Assistant

AWS is not known for its collaboration products, unlike competitors like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

However, AWS made a huge statement this year by making Amazon Q, the company’s first ever AI-powered assistant, generally available this year.

Customers can use Amazon Q to have conversations, solve problems, generate content, gain insight and take action by connecting to their company’s information repositories, code, data and enterprise systems. The new AI chatbot helps customers complete tasks using simple natural language prompts, while also providing cybersecurity features such as access controls and traceability.

Why This Matters: This shows that AWS is willing to pivot quickly into AI verticals it’s not known to typically play in. Amazon Q proves AWS will invest in AI R&D around making the “ultimate” generative AI portfolio.

No. 6: AWS Spends Tens Of Billions On Data Center Expansion

AWS unveiled it will spend tens of billions of dollars over the next few years on massive new data center projects both inside the U.S. and abroad.

AWS data centers—known as AWS Cloud Regions or AWS Availability Zones that are full of servers, storage and networking infrastructure—power all of the company’s services and solutions.

Several of AWS’ biggest cloud infrastructure investments this year include:

Why This Matters: To stay the world leader in cloud computing, AWS is making these investments to capture new customers in new markets. Another key reason why AWS’ investments in 2024 is near an all-time high, is to enable its generative AI availability and boost AI customer adoption across the globe.

No. 5: Amazon Layoffs In 2024 Were Light; AWS Not Greatly Affected

In 2023, the tech world experienced a massive layoff surge including 18,000 employees from AWS parent company Amazon.

In 2024, Amazon has only laid off a small number of employees which appears to have not impacted AWS significantly. Layoffs this year at Amazon this year so far include over 500 employees from its livestreaming platform Twitch, and hundreds of workers inside its Prime Video and MGM Studios team.

However, in April, AWS confirmed it was laying off hundreds of employees affecting mostly training, certification and sales personnel.

“Once all processes related to this action are complete, we expect these role eliminations to impact several hundred roles in specific areas of the sales, marketing, and global services organization and a few hundred roles in the physical stores technology team,” AWS told CRN at the time.

Although AWS doesn’t provide its global employee headcount, AWS likely has at least tens of thousands of employees, meaning 2024 layoffs did not impact a sizable portion of its global employees.

Why This Matters: AWS layoffs this year, thus far, appear to have impacted training and certification employees as AWS shifts toward more digital training and training programs run by external partners.

No. 4: AWS Removes Egress Fees

For years, cloud egress fees have been a pain point for cloud customers of all shapes and sizes.

In a monumental shift in the cloud computing world, AWS unveiled it will remove egress fees when migrating data to another cloud provider or to on-premises environments.

Effective in March, AWS began waiving data transfer out to the internet (DTO) charges when customers want to move workloads or environments outside of Amazon.

However, it is key to note that both Google Cloud and Microsoft eliminated egress fees for Google Cloud Platform and Azure as well in 2024. Each vendor has slightly different requirements regarding customers not having to pay egress fees, but all are broadly doing the same thing—providing egress credits to clients leaving.

Why This Matters: Many experts believe the three cloud titans eliminated egress fees not out of kindness, but due to more strict and reinforced global regulatory requirements in both America and Europe.

No. 3: AWS Still No. 1 Cloud Market Leader, But Grip Is Slipping

Since cloud computing began well over a decade ago, AWS has been the worldwide global market share leader in cloud.

Just two years ago, AWS’ share of the global cloud infrastructure services market stood at 33 percent, approximately 11 points ahead of Microsoft at the time. However, Google Cloud and particularly Microsoft have been eating away at AWS’ share over the past 24 months.

As of Q1 2024, AWS’ worldwide cloud share stands at 31 percent, down from 33 percent share in Q1 2022.

Comparatively, Microsoft’s global share increased from 22 percent share in Q1 2022 to 25 percent share as of Q1 2024—gaining 3-points share in just two years.

Google Cloud has grown its market share from 10 percent share in Q1 2022 to now 11 percent share in Q1 2024.

Additionally, Google Cloud has been increasing cloud sales at faster rate than AWS. In Q1 2024, Google Cloud sales increased 28 percent year over year to $6.9 billion, while AWS sales increased only 17 percent to $25 billion.

Why This Matters: There is no need for AWS to panic just yet about Google and Microsoft eating into its cloud leadership grasp. However, if AWS cloud market share continues to diminish during the second half 2024, the world’s longtime cloud leader will need to make a change.

No. 2: AWS Laser-Focused On AI Innovation

You can’t talk about AWS’ biggest news stories of 2024 without focusing on the company’s new artificial intelligence and generative AI products launched this year. AWS has focused its R&D dollars this year mostly on building out its AI portfolio.

Here are just a few big AI and GenAI solutions created by AWS this year:

Why This Matters: AWS put its money where its mouth is in 2024 in terms of launching new AI and GenAI products, services and tools. Customers and partners should expect the same level of AI products launches in the second half of 2024.

No. 1: Adam Selipsky Abruptly Leaves; AWS Vet Matt Garman Becomes New CEO

The biggest story from AWS in 2024 was the unexpected announcement that Adam Selipsky was not only stepping down as CEO, but leaving the company entirely after working 15 years at the firm.

Selipsky was one of the first vice presidents AWS hired back in 2005. In 2021, he was selected as its new CEO after its former CEO, Andy Jassy, was promoted to CEO of parent company Amazon. Selipsky was critical in helping increase AWS sales to a $100 billion annual run rate and drove innovation, particularly around AI, during his three years as CEO.

AWS veteran Matt Garman is now leading the world’s largest cloud company.

Garman joined AWS in 2006 as the company’s first-ever project manager for EC2 and helped roll out AWS first service level agreements. He worked his way up the ranks for the past 17 years, with positions including vice president of AWS Compute Services, then in 2020 he became SVP of AWS sales, marketing and global services.

Since becoming AWS’ new CEO, Garman has made his strategy clear: generative AI will be AWS’ focus in 2024 and beyond.

“With security as the absolute baseline, the next most critical thing for AWS today is innovating on behalf of our customers in the realm of generative AI,” said AWS CEO Matt Garman recently. “Generative AI is going to disrupt and change almost every industry and customer experience in the world. It’s an area where we have invested heavily and will continue to do so.”

In an interview with CRN in late 2023, Garman said GenAI will accelerate customers’ move to the cloud.

“We’re still in the early stages of cloud adoption and growth, and there is way more potential ahead of us than behind us,” he told CRN.

Why This Matters: The reason for Adam Selipsky’s sudden exit from AWS is still unknown. However, AWS picked a new CEO in Matt Garman who is more than prepared to lead AWS’ cloud and AI charge into the future with intimate knowledge of how AWS operates.