AI agents will change work and society in internet-sized ways, says AWS VP

Forget the old Apple slogan, “Think different.” For Deepak Singh, VP of developer agents and experiences at AWS, the mantra of the future is “work differently,” and the way he wants to do that is through agentic AI.

“I think people get too hung up on the automation and efficiency, part of which are outcomes,” said Singh. “We are working differently, but the way we are working different is making us more effective because [agents are] solving harder problems or more problems than you could do before.”

Also: AWS aims to be your one-stop-shop for AI agents from Anthropic, IBM, Perplexity, and others

Singh sat down with ZDNET on Wednesday, shortly after AWS introduced a bevy of new tools and features centered around agentic AI solutions. Among the biggest announcements were Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, a new enterprise-grade platform designed to facilitate the implementation process for new agents, and a new virtual store within AWS Marketplace, which allows customers to choose agents from Anthropic, IBM, Perplexity, Salesforce, and other vendors.

At the core of the announcements is the ability to make organizations more easily adopt, customize, and deploy AI agents in their organization. This ease of access to AI agents inherently means the technology will be more rapidly deployed, and that the way people work will be transformed rapidly — but Amazon postulates it’s for the better. 

Work smart 

Singh, whose work focuses on building experiences that optimize how developers build software, told ZDNET that agentic AI offers workers of all levels the opportunity to build more efficiently.

For example, Singh said a software developer intern could spend more time learning how the system works instead of learning the intricacies of a new programming language. Ultimately, a better understanding of the system, facilitated through interactions with AI agents, can help the intern develop the project they are working on. 

This type of shift, however, will only occur if employees shift their mindset and learn to work smarter. 

“On an individual level, you want to figure out if what I’m doing is higher quality. Am I able to do more things? Am I able to take on more? Because I have the capacity?” said Singh. “If you don’t work differently, you’re not going to get that benefit.”

The future of entry-level jobs

In a blog post timed with the announcements, Amazon shared a similar position, saying that AI is actually augmenting entry-level tech careers, opposing a sentiment that many experts hold, in which early-career roles will actually be the first to go. Furthermore, the post identified five high-growth roles transformed by AI, including software development, data analysis, cloud engineering, cybersecurity, and data engineering. 

To further illustrate this narrative, Singh gave a more tangible example of a team member who wanted to build a new feature and estimated it would take approximately one week. Using Kiro, a new agentic IDE launched by AWS this week, the individual was able to ship it in a single day. 

Also: 5 entry-level tech jobs AI is already augmenting, according to Amazon

The key here is that the result was a collaborative effort, which allowed them to accomplish more in the same amount of time.

“The future of how applications run and how we as people interact with the world around us is going to be through agents,” said Singh. “Agentic AI is going to be a change for society and business that is as important as the internet.” 

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