Amazon, which has so far been only a minor player in the ongoing global AI revolution, is reportedly building an advanced language model that might allow it to better compete with rivals such as OpenAI and Google. Codenamed “Olympus” for the time being, Amazon’s latest under-development LLM might just be the firm’s trump card to fame in the AI space, given that its offerings have so far been limited to commercial clients and other technical partners. Despite the development of platforms such as Bedrock and the large language model series called Titan, Amazon is yet to achieve an indelible presence in the AI market, unlike OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot. Leveraging the AWS platform, the conglomerate plans on launching an in-house offering capable of attracting potential customers to its services, fueling its expansion into the artificial intelligence economy.
Though limited information is available regarding Amazon Olympus, certain speculations based on some details can be made to assess the firm’s prospects in a market fraught with rivalries and global competition. Amazon hasn’t remained a silent observer of the ongoing AI boom, but it has stayed out of discussions that have arisen in response to its competitors’ products, many of which are freely accessible to the general public. It was expected that the model would be announced during Amazon’s AWS Reinvent 2023 event; however, no such announcements were made, indicating that the model might be revealed early next year. The forthcoming sections detail currently available information on the elusive AI project undertaken by Amazon.
Amazon Olympus: Currently Available Information
LLMs have become an important part of leading tech conglomerates.
Amazon Olympus might be the largest language model under development presently, with over 2 trillion parameters. For context, OpenAI’s most advanced GPT-4 model has about 1 trillion parameters, making Olympus’ dataset up to twice the size of OpenAI’s prized offering to the AI market. This is also commensurate with the fact that Amazon has been investing heavily in AI technology and is focused on tapping into the growing market for conversational artificial intelligence. Rohit Prasad, who was formerly the chief scientist behind Alexa, is in charge of the Olympus AI development project. Prasad put together a team of professionals who formerly worked on Alexa as well as those from the firm’s varied divisions. Like its other AI offerings, Olympus, too, might be developed for corporate and commercial clients since AWS has an established brand name in the digital solutions space.
With generative AI’s popularity on a consistent rise, Amazon can no longer afford to hang back in the ongoing global revolution, lest it risks being left behind. Since Amazon already has experience developing AI solutions in the past, the current project to develop a durable AI chatbot through its Olympus model will certainly rise in priority. Prasad purportedly reports directly to Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy. All of this comes at a time when Amazon has been consistently scaling its AI efforts and has also enhanced partnerships and funding for AI startups. This includes firms such as Anthropic and AI21 Labs. The former is especially famous for its highly durable, safe, and jailbreak-resistant language models like Claude and its successor, Claude 2.
Potential Functions of Olympus Generative AI
Olympus might be targeted at potential enterprise customers.
Unlike the free options provided by Google Bard and OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model on ChatGPT, Amazon Olympus might be created to tap into customers at an enterprise level. In addition, the new language model is also aimed at making offerings on AWS more attractive to existing customers who might want to enhance their workflows with AI solutions. Olympus might also be integrated with Amazon’s other services, which include retail and e-commerce divisions, along with its existing Alexa assistant, which has been awaiting an overhaul for quite some time. Since a vast number of firms have been incorporating AI into their workflows, other rival firms such as Microsoft have also capitalized on the situation and launched services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot to cater to professional requirements. Google has elicited similar interests as well, consistently updating its Bard chatbot to connect across its productivity tools such as Docs, Sheets, and Gmail. In an environment as competitive as this, Amazon can hardly afford to merely stand by.
While it is unclear whether Amazon might also cater to the large market of AI enthusiasts and lay users by launching free editions of chatbots based on Olympus, AWS’ business clients that opt for it are sure to get enhanced services upon its arrival. Moreover, with the AI assistant market also on the rise and firms like Inflection launching advanced LLMs like Inflection 2, Amazon might also be interested in deploying its generative AI model to further fine-tune Alexa for the future. More importantly, Google has already announced the integration of its learnings from Bard into Google Assistant, which presents competition to Amazon in the same niche. Other e-commerce firms across the world, such as Alibaba, have also launched their own AI offerings. The Chinese retail giant has named its LLM “Tongyi Qianwen,” which has its primary proficiency in Mandarin and considerable working capacity in English. With Amazon’s entry into this space, competition is bound to grow further, signaling the next stage in global AI development.
Growing Generative AI Footprint and Commercial Chatbots
Generative artificial intelligence will continue to witness healthy growth over the coming years.
Chatbots and language models have become nearly ubiquitous, despite being rather novel technologies just about a year ago. As technology continues to progress at breakneck speed, Amazon’s increased investment in LLM and AI tools reflects an ever-expanding market for high-quality artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. Primarily aimed at reducing the cognitive load on human beings, AI has also had its setbacks and disadvantages, which continue to be discussed as responsible AI policies evolve. Amazon, too, is aware of these policies and is working to incorporate them into its own set of AI offerings. Though the firm might be late to the AI revolution and despite the limited extent of details regarding Olympus, it can be estimated that the LLM will create a considerable impression on the market due to the sheer extent of its rumored parameter size.
FAQs
1. How many parameters does Amazon Olympus have?
Amazon Olympus purportedly might be trained on over 2 trillion parameters, making it one of the largest language models in existence.
2. Will Amazon Olympus AI be available to users?
Amazon Olympus is still under development, and the company hasn’t officially announced the language model. Presently, there’s no information on the exact details of Olympus AI.
3. What will Olympus AI be used for?
Amazon is possibly positioning Olympus to target enterprise customers seeking AI solutions. Furthermore, Amazon might also enhance its AI assistants like Alexa and other businesses, such as its retail division, with advanced AI tools derived from Olympus.