Amazon (AMZN) on Tuesday launched its own OpenClaw-like desktop AI agent and rolled out several separate agent AI services in a bid to gain share in the enterprise software market.
The company’s Desktop Agent is a new version of its existing Amazon Quick product, Amazon’s cloud-based service that can perform multiple tasks on your behalf, such as drafting emails and extracting information from your data.
According to Amazon, Quick is designed to work with a variety of ecosystems, including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, and Zoom. The idea is that this allows Quick to retrieve data no matter where it resides.
The desktop aspect also allows agents to send alerts when needed. For example, if you need to update a document, miss an email, or a deal needs your attention in Salesforce.
“Quick isn’t just about asking a question, it’s about taking action like scheduling a meeting, sending an email, creating a dashboard, or following up on action items that need follow-up. [on]” explained Jigar Thakkar, Amazon’s vice president of agent AI for business.
“It gives you a positive daily feed that tells you what and how to focus and helps you accomplish those things,” he added.
OpenClaw gained a lot of attention among developers thanks to its ability to use their own data to perform actions on your behalf from your own desktop.
The advantage is that it can be customized as needed, provide access to the information you need, and perform tasks on your behalf. The problem is that all of this can create a security nightmare.
However, Amazon says Quick has built-in security features. For example, ask for access to your data and whether you want to perform tasks on it.
In addition to Quick, Amazon announced that it is expanding its AI-powered customer support platform, Amazon Connect, to four different agent AI services. These are Connect Decisions for supply chain operations, Connect Talent for recruitment, Connect Customer AI for customer support, and Connect Health for medical settings.
The move is part of Amazon’s efforts to push further into enterprise software, bringing new competition to a market already dominated by the likes of Microsoft and Salesforce.
Questions also swirl about whether AI can perform many of the tasks that enterprise software is designed to tackle, raising concerns about the long-term viability of the market.
The so-called “SaaS apocalypse” has seen the stock prices of Salesforce (CRM), Thomson Reuters (TRI), and ServiceNow (NOW) plummet in recent months, with Salesforce down 30% since the beginning of the year, Thomson Reuters down 33%, and ServiceNow down 39%.
