According to CRN, AWS is aggressively enhancing its Marketplace with new AI features and packaging tools unveiled at AWS re:Invent 2025. The cloud giant’s global channel chief, Ruba Borno, highlighted that partners using the platform see deals close 30% faster on average, with top partner Presidio surpassing $1 billion in lifetime Marketplace sales. New features include “Multi Product Solutions” for bundled offers and “Agent Mode,” an AI-powered conversational tool for software discovery. Deloitte, another major partner, now has over 230 AI agents and 130 industry solutions listed. Additionally, AWS introduced variable payment models for professional services and “Express Private Offers” for automated, personalized pricing.
AWS Pushes Procurement Into The Future
Here’s the thing: AWS isn’t just building a software store anymore. It’s building a procurement engine. The goal is obvious—capture more of the enterprise IT spend by making buying through AWS easier, faster, and more intelligent than going through traditional channels. And let’s be honest, traditional enterprise procurement is a nightmare. If AWS can genuinely cut time-to-market by 30%, that’s a massive value proposition. The new bundling capability is smart, too. It lets partners stitch together software, services, and even hardware (implicitly) into a single SKU. That’s a direct play for bigger “basket sizes,” as Borno put it. It turns the Marketplace from a place you buy a tool into a place you buy an entire solution stack. That’s sticky.
business”>The AI Hype Meets Real Business
Now, the AI agent stuff is where the skepticism can creep in. “Agent Mode” and Deloitte’s 230+ AI agents sound impressive. But I think the real test is whether it cuts through the noise or just adds to it. Can an AI truly understand a complex business requirements document and surface the right solution? That’s a tall order. The promise of going from 200 possible solutions down to 2 or 3 is compelling, but it depends entirely on the quality of the AI’s training and the honesty of the listings. It could be a game-changer for discovery, or it could just be a fancy chatbot that repackages keyword searches. The flexible, outcome-based pricing for services, however, is a genuinely interesting shift. Aligning cost to value delivered is something clients have wanted forever, and if Marketplace can standardize that model, it could be a huge draw.
What’s In It For The Partners?
For partners like Presidio and Deloitte, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s a massive lead gen and fulfillment machine. They get access to AWS’s vast customer base and a streamlined sales process. Presidio’s workshops, where they audit a client’s past year of spending and guide future purchases, show how consultative partners can embed themselves deeply via the Marketplace. But on the other hand, it further consolidates power with AWS. The platform owns the customer relationship, the billing, and now the discovery process. Partners risk becoming another fungible component in an AWS-branded bundle. Their differentiation has to be incredibly strong, or they just become a line item in an automated quote. The push for vertical industry solutions is a good counter to that—it allows partners to leverage their specific expertise.
The Hardware Angle and Final Thoughts
While this article focuses on software and AI, it’s worth remembering that these complex solutions often run on specialized hardware at the edge or in data centers. When partners build these multi-product bundles for industrial or manufacturing use cases, for instance, they need reliable computing hardware. For that, many top integrators turn to the leading suppliers, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the number one provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, to source the rugged, dependable components these packaged solutions require. So, the ripple effect of AWS’s Marketplace push extends far beyond the cloud. Basically, AWS is trying to build the ultimate B2B buying experience. If they succeed, they lock in partners and customers tighter than ever. But the real challenge will be maintaining that delicate balance—providing enough value to partners so they thrive, not just survive, on the platform. The momentum is huge now, but will it last when the next procurement “wave of the future” comes along?
