5 Key Takeaways from the 2025 AWS Partner Summit
By Simon Tindal, CTO, Smart Communications
Dirty data, AI ethicists, and the resurgence of IoT were just a few of the hot topics at the recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Summit in New York City. I was honored to attend the event and participate in two roundtables alongside fellow CTOs and CIOs, where we explored the evolving role of generative AI in enterprise environments—particularly how it can enhance customer experience at scale.
The timing couldn’t be better. According to Gartner, 33% of all applications will be agentic AI-enabled by 2028. That’s just around the corner, and it’s why events like these are critical not just for inspiration, but for alignment. They offer a window into where the market is heading, and how we as technology leaders can deliver innovation responsibly, flexibly, and quickly.
At Smart Communications, we’ve been fortunate to deepen our partnership with AWS at the perfect moment. It’s a strategic relationship that informs not only the infrastructure we build on, but the way we innovate: safely, at scale, and with our customers always at the center.
Below are five key takeaways from the Summit, and how they connect back to our approach at Smart Communications.
1. Dirty Data Is Not the Fuel You Want Powering Your AI
One of the most resonant lines from the Summit: “Data is the fuel of GenAI. You wouldn’t run your vehicle on dirty fuel.”
Put another way, if your data is fragmented, outdated, or unstructured, it doesn't matter how powerful your AI models are. You're not going to get reliable results. Across both roundtables I joined, data quality and governance dominated the conversation.
That’s why our SmartIQ™ solution was designed to securely capture and validate data so companies can act on it with confidence, whether using it for service center interactions or feeding it into generative workflows. It’s also why we lean on Amazon Bedrock to give us multi-model flexibility without compromising data privacy. Our customers, particularly in financial services and healthcare, need to know that sensitive data isn’t being used to train public Large Language Models (LLMs). With Bedrock, we have the peace of mind that it’s not.
2. A Holistic, Integrated Approach to AI Implementation Is Critical
There was a clear consensus at the Summit: AI success comes from end-to-end thinking. For businesses to truly improve customer experience, AI should be embedded across the user journey, with a clear strategy for how it supports customer outcomes.
This mirrors one of our own AI Guiding Principles at Smart Communications: relevance. We build AI features that are directly embedded into the workflows our users already rely on—like tone refinement or language simplification in SmartCOMM™’s Design Assistant. They’re designed to meet users where they are and improve both efficiency and how they engage with customers.
We’re not building AI for AI’s sake. We’re building it to make digital experiences more thoughtful, personalized, and effective—while reducing friction for the people creating them.
3. Responsible AI Use Requires Increased Emphasis and Attention
A theme that surfaced repeatedly was the ethical use of AI. One keynote slide even highlighted the emergence of a new organizational role: an AI ethicist focused on analyzing and addressing the implications of AI. That speaks volumes.
At Smart Communications, accountability and compliance are core to our approach. We’ve invested in capabilities like AI logging in template editors, AI identification in conversation history, and other process tracking so our customers can prove, not just assume, how AI is being used.
We’ve long championed a “human in the loop” approach to AI technology. Now, as discussed at the AWS Summit, we’re entering a new phase the industry calls “human on the loop.” Rather than validating every output, people are shifting to a more supervisory role focused on optimizing AI performance over time. This evolution aligns with our vision for responsible AI—empowered, but never unchecked.
Whether it’s logging communications for applications considered Limited Risk under the EU AI Act, or ensuring AI translations are marked as enhanced content, Smart Communications is innovating to reduce compliance risk. When we say our AI solutions are enterprise-grade, this is what we mean. We ensure content provenance is maintained within the communication value chain, providing full auditability of where AI is used and enabling our clients to stay aligned with evolving regulations worldwide.
4. A Flexible Approach to AI Will Ease and Accelerate Scaling
In a fast-moving space like this, rigidity is a risk. One of the biggest reasons we chose to build on Amazon Bedrock is the flexibility it gives us to switch in and out different models as needs evolve.
We’ve already seen this in action. When we first launched some of our AI capabilities, we started with Anthropic’s Claude model, which was the right choice for speed and geographic availability. Since then, we’ve added services (connected through Amazon Bedrock) to both AWS Translate and Amazon’s Nova Lite—bringing more value to our customers and striking the right balance between speed, safety, and availability.
That ability to adapt quickly, without having to start from scratch, has been a game-changer. And it’s exactly the kind of agility that enterprises are looking for. With Bedrock, we can match the right LLM to the right task.
5. Build and Deliver Use Cases That Actually Deliver Value
Agentic AI isn’t just about capability—it’s about continuity. Unlike traditional AI interactions (ask a question, get a response), agentic systems maintain context over time, enabling more lifelike conversations. This persistent context opens the door to a resurgence in connected, conversational devices—a kind of second wave for IoT, now made smarter and more useful through agentic intelligence.
That’s also where our data collection and omnichannel orchestration solutions shine. We’re building systems that don’t just respond—they remember, connect, and evolve across channels. And the use cases are only growing: from hyper-personalized insurance cover letters, to multilingual financial services responses, to context-aware knowledge assistants that elevate user efficiency.
But all of it must deliver measurable value. That’s why our AI innovations are relevant to business outcomes, such as faster document creation, better tone control, and reduced compliance risk. If a feature doesn’t solve a real problem, we deprioritize it.
A Strategic Partnership That Helps Us Move Faster and Smarter
This focus on value creation is one of the many reasons our partnership with AWS is so important. Together, we’re bringing secure, compliant, and intelligent solutions to market, helping organizations optimize their digital interactions with customers in new and exciting ways.
As Sudeep John, AWS — Technology Partnerships, put it:
“The collaboration between Smart Communications and Amazon Web Services (AWS) builds on an existing and mutually beneficial relationship.
Smart Communications is deepening its use of Amazon Bedrock by integrating Amazon Nova Lite — enabling faster, safer, and more reliable agentic decision-making to support critical customer conversations.
Together, the companies are delivering a robust cloud services and management portfolio that empowers enterprise customers with secure, scalable, and intelligent access to cloud-powered customer communications.”
It’s a relationship that keeps evolving—through product integration, go-to-market alignment, and joint events. And with SmartCOMM and SmartIQ both available on the AWS Marketplace, it’s never been easier for organizations to procure and deploy our solutions within their cloud environments.
Looking Ahead
I left the 2025 AWS Partner Summit with a deep sense of excitement. From data integrity and AI transparency to scalable infrastructure and smart orchestration, we’re not just keeping up with the pace of change. We’re helping to set it.
And this is only the beginning. Stay tuned for more innovation to come—built on Amazon Bedrock, aligned with our AI Guiding Principles, and designed to help organizations create digital customer experiences that are as intelligent as they are compliant.