Jonathan Allen, AWS executive in residence. Amazon Web Services (AWS) says its Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) business will help organisations across Africa increasingly shift their focus from artificial intelligence (AI) exploration, to real-world business transformation.This, after the cloud computing giant in June announced it was investing $1 billion to set up the new AWS FDE firm, which will embed thousands of engineering experts with customers to co-develop and deploy agentic AI solutions within a few days.The AWS engineers, including members of its frontier teams, will work directly with clients’ business, engineering and security teams to create AI systems using customers' data, governance frameworks and existing processes.At this week's AWS Summit Johannesburg, Jonathan Allen, AWS executive in residence, provided additional detail on the new unit’s relevance to African organisations, briefly discussing the company's approach to helping enterprises move AI into production.The FDE model is aimed at organisations that have moved beyond experimenting with AI and are looking to embed it into core business processes, including in sectors where security, governance and speed to production are critical, noted Allen. See also “AWS FDE teams will work alongside customers to build, deploy and operationalise AI solutions within existing business processes, while ensuring customers retain the skills, governance frameworks and operational capability to continue innovating independently,” he explained.“For African enterprises, this model could become increasingly relevant as businesses move from proof-of-concept projects, towards AI deployments that deliver measurable operational and commercial outcomes.”AWS says the approach differs from traditional consulting because the objective is not simply to assess an organisation's requirements or deliver an individual project. Instead, FDE teams work alongside customers to build production systems, while transferring the skills and knowledge needed to operate and develop those systems after the engagement ends.“The FDE model is built around three principles: an agentic-first approach, compressing deployment timelines from months to days, and ensuring customers become self-sufficient when engagements end.”The organisation uses agentic AI and its AI-driven development lifecycle, in which AI agents support different stages of software development, while human engineers provide oversight, verification and direction.FDE teams have started working with several organisations, including the Allen Institute, Cox Automotive, NBA, NFL, Ricoh and Southwest Airlines, he pointed out.The NFL, for example, worked with AWS FDE engineers to develop new fan-facing products, including NFL Fantasy AI and NFL IQ.The company says it worked with BMW to reduce service disruptions across 23 million connected vehicles, while other projects included Jabil's manufacturing assistant for factory operations and helping resolve Lyft driver support issues 87% faster.“For African organisations, the significance of the model lies not only in faster deployment, but in the emphasis on transferring engineering capabilities, governance frameworks and operational knowledge to customers. This could help businesses move from AI pilots to production systems without creating long-term dependence on external technology specialists,” it states.