Introduction
The rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud technologies is no longer a parallel progress but a convergent evolution, where one significantly complements and enhances the other. In this blog, we cover the benefits they offer each other and how AI companies can leverage cloud marketplaces to the full extent.
Forbes values the global AI market at $136.55 Bn in 2022 and is expected to grow in double-digit CAGR in the coming years. This is even before the funding for Gen-AI companies increased eightfold between 2022 and 2024. According to the latest stats, there are 70,000 AI companies globally.
“The convergence of AI and cloud represents a transformative juncture, reshaping how businesses approach technology for innovation and growth. Businesses must navigate the complexities of optimizing costs associated with AI infrastructure, including compute resources, storage and data processing, while ensuring that investments in AI technologies yield tangible returns,” said Alex Smith, VP at Canalys.
As AI continues to revolutionize businesses, and adoption in organizations has crossed 55% (McKinsey report), this growth is only expected to accelerate as more companies start seeing the returns from their AI investments.
Cloud providers too are playing a pivotal role in driving the adoption of AI among their customers and providing efficient infrastructure that forms the backbone of AI services.
Lately, Labra has also onboarded several companies into Cloud Marketplaces allowing them to tap into billions in committed cloud spending and helping them build partnerships and co-sell with cloud providers.
AI and cloud adoption
So, what do these cloud providers offer for AI companies and the ecosystem around it?
Let’s look at the cloud provider offerings as three distinct layers – Frameworks and infrastructure, Machine learning platforms, and API-driven services.
Each provider brings unique offerings to each of these layers, catering to different aspects of AI development:
| Frameworks and infrastructure | Machine learning platforms | API-driven services | |
| AWS | AWS Nitro System
AWS Trainium2 AWS Inferentia accelerators Amazon SageMaker AWS Neuron Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) EC2 UltraClusters EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML |
Amazon Bedrock
Agents for Amazon Bedrock |
Amazon Q
Amazon Q in Amazon Quicksight Amazon Q in Amazon Connect Amazon CodeWhisperer |
| GCP | Vertex AI Studio
Vertex AI Agent Builder Vertex AI Platform Vertex AI Notebooks TPUs, GPUs, and CPUs Google Kubernetes Engine |
Vertex AI Studio
Vertex AI Agent Builder Vertex AI Platform Vertex AI Notebooks AutoML Natural Language AI Vision AI Video AI Document AI Dialog flow Contact Center AI Gemini Code Assist |
Natural Language AI
Speech-to-Text Text-to-Speech Translation AI Vision AI Video AI Document AI Dialog flow Contact Center AI Gemini Code Assist |
| Microsoft Azure | Azure Machine Learning
Apache Spark on Azure Azure Databricks Runtime for Machine Learning |
Azure Machine Learning
Azure Cognitive Services Azure Bot Service |
Azure Cognitive Services
Azure Cognitive Search Azure Bot Service |
Market dynamics and AI integration in 2024
The first quarter of 2024 has seen remarkable growth in cloud marketplaces, with a notable increase in AI product listings:
AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP have expanded their AI offerings, collectively hosting thousands of AI-centric products. This expansion is not just in numbers but also in the sophistication of the solutions provided.
Even databases that companies are relying on are seeing a big transformation, only 1% of organizations are very satisfied with their legacy databases’ support for AI, and 71% of organizations plan to use databases integrated with gen AI capabilities (Google’s Data and AI trends report).
AI and Cloud services mutually benefit each other, and this symbiotic relationship is what we explore in the upcoming sections.
These AI ISVs leverage the Labra platform for efficient cloud sales operations.
How AI enhances cloud services
AI improves the overall cloud experience for ISVs, makes their operations better, and also helps the end customer in many ways.
- Optimized cloud resource management with AI
- AI for predictive cloud infrastructure maintenance
- Tailored user experiences via AI in cloud services
- Enhancing cloud security with AI technologies
- Innovative AI applications in cloud computing
- Data insights and analysis powered by AI in the cloud
- Self-managing cloud systems through AI automation
- Virtual assistance and customer support powered by AI
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AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure Marketplaces with Labra. Accelerate your time to market and scale your sales effortlessly.
How cloud providers cater to AI solutions
Cloud providers offer several core pillars that AI companies build on top of, in addition to that they also run funding programs for startups in the AI space, and offer greater visibility and faster procurement through their marketplaces.
| Cloud Provider | Key Benefits for AI Solutions | Funding program |
| AWS | AWS Marketplace offers a wide range of AI and machine learning products that are pre-integrated into AWS services. This allows for easy deployment and management of AI applications, along with the ability to scale as needed. | AWS Generative AI Accelerator: provides up to $300,000 in AWS credits AWS Activate: up to $100,000 in AWS credits |
| Google Cloud | Google Cloud provides comprehensive documentation and tools for AI and ML development, including pre-trained models and the ability to build, deploy, and scale applications through its AI Hub. This supports a wide range of machine-learning capabilities and scenarios. | Google Cloud for Gen AI startups. Upto $350,000. |
| Azure | Azure Marketplace accelerates AI innovation by offering products like Azure Machine Learning, Azure AI Studio, and Azure OpenAI Service, which enable developers to build, train, and deploy AI models from the cloud to the edge. It supports open-source technologies and integrates with various Azure services. | Azure AI Startups Credits: Startups can receive up to $150,000 in Azure credits |
Leadership Insights on AI
Statements from the CEOs of these tech giants underscore the strategic importance of AI in their growth narratives:
Sundar Pichai of Google emphasized “the transformative impact of Gemini products on both enterprise and developer ecosystems.”
Satya Nadella of Microsoft highlighted the “integral role of Azure AI in driving industry-wide innovation.”
Andy Jassy of AWS remarked on “the pivotal role of AWS in democratizing AI technologies, making them accessible to a broader audience.”
Conclusion: Mutual growth trajectory
The symbiotic relationship between AI technologies and cloud marketplaces is poised to continue its upward trajectory over the coming years. As AI startups and established companies tap into the rich resources and global reach of cloud marketplaces, they not only contribute to but also benefit from the expansive growth of these platforms. This partnership is set to redefine business models and spur innovation across sectors, making cloud marketplaces the de facto launchpad for AI-driven solutions.
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