AWS for Software Companies Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Ep197: From Dashboards to Agents: How Qlik Is Reinventing Data Analytics with AI Mar 10, 2026

Show notes

CTO Sam Pierson explains how Qlik’s associative engine and agentic AI are transforming the way businesses uncover insights and what’s next on the data frontier.

Topics Include:

Qlik is a 30-year-old data analytics and AI company with global customers.
Qlik's associative engine surfaces insights from data you aren't even examining.
A paper manufacturer optimized supply chain routing and navigated tariff complexity.
Generative AI can't easily query databases — Qlik's engine bridges that gap.
Qlik built an agentic layer enabling natural language conversations with your data.
MCP integration lets users access Qlik insights directly from tools like Claude Desktop.
Qlik runs entirely on AWS, with global regions built around local compliance requirements.
The AWS partnership prioritizes mutual success over transactional service relationships.
Agents will mature in 2026; some agentic bets will succeed, others will be refactored.
Fine-tuned, smaller language models will grow in importance alongside larger ones.
AI adoption requires restructuring workflows end-to-end, from product spec to go-to-market.
Qlik is hiring for curiosity and agency — people who experiment without waiting for permission.

Participants:

Sam Pierson – Chief Technology Officer, Qlik

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep196: Agentic AI and the Future of Cloud Security with Sumo Logic Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

Sumo Logic's VP of Security Strategy reveals how a ground-up agentic framework transformed their platform, and why clean data and autonomous agents are rewriting the rules of cloud security.

Topics Include:

Sumo Logic is a cloud analytics platform ingesting data from complex IT stacks.
Built on AWS from the start, leveraging microservices for scalable solutions.
Early AI efforts produced a natural language query co-pilot for security data.
Bolting AI onto existing platforms proved brittle and one-dimensional.
Customer feedback drove a decision to redesign AI from the ground up.
The Dojo AI framework unifies purpose-built agents across the entire platform.
New agents include a SOC analyst agent, knowledge agent, and MCP server.
New frontier models on Bedrock give the whole platform an instant brain transplant.
Autonomous agents require rethinking security controls beyond traditional programmatic guardrails.
Federal and global customers demand rigorous, levelled-up security across all regions.
Clean, normalized data proved the biggest unlock for reliable AI query results.
Agent-to-agent communication and MCP will define the next era of AI platforms.

Participants:

Chas Clawson – Vice President, Security Strategy, Sumo Logic

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep195: Tax Compliance at Scale: How Avalara Is Rewriting the Rules with AI and AWS Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

Avalara's Chief Architect Tim Diekmann reveals how AI and agentic technology are transforming tax compliance and accuracy across 40,000 jurisdictions leveraging AWS.

Topics Include:

Avalara provides tax compliance software across North America, Europe, and beyond.
They operate between commerce and government, covering 40,000+ jurisdictions.
Services span registration, sales tax calculation, and certificate management.
Avalara was the only company keeping pace with rapid tariff changes.
AI is used to parse unstructured documents like tax notices and publications.
Intelligent mapping automates ERP integration across vastly different system configurations.
GenAI lets customers query billions of transactions using plain conversational language.
Avalara and AWS are now engaged in a promising co-selling motion.
Time-to-go-live and transaction accuracy are the key success metrics tracked.
Amazon Q was rolled out company-wide, achieving 95% developer adoption.
AI literacy is now prioritized across legal, HR, and engineering teams alike.
Agentic AI will embed Avalara directly inside customer ERP systems going forward.

Participants:

Tim Diekmann – SVP of Engineering, Chief Architect, Avalara

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep194: Measuring What Matters: A Future of Transparency, Safety and Honest Productivity with Honeycomb Feb 17, 2026

Show notes

Honeycomb Co-founder and CTO Charity Majors explains why measuring the right engineering metrics in the age of AI matters more than chasing numbers.

Topics Include:

Charity Majors introduces Honeycomb as the original observability company for complex systems
Honeycomb solves high cardinality problems across millions of individual customer experiences
Their MCP tool ranked top five in Stack Overflow's most-used list
Canva lets developers interact with production software directly from their IDE
AI acts as an amplifier requiring strong reliability and observability foundations
Measuring success requires multiple metrics to avoid gaming single numbers
Honeycomb adopted Intercom's 2X productivity challenge enlisting employees to identify gains
Writing code was never the hard part even before generative AI arrived
Honeycomb created AI values prioritizing transparency and emotional safety for employees
Staff tested boundaries on resources and environmental impact prompting honest discussions
Honeycomb acquired Grok and shipped Query Assistant Canvas and MCP products
Future concerns include AI economics shifting and AI-native developers lacking foundational expertise

Participants:

Charity Majors – Co-Founder/CTO, Honeycomb.io

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep193: The Conductor Behind Your Data Orchestra: Astronomer's Approach to AI Pipeline Management Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

Astronomer's Steven Hillion reveals how OpenAI, Anthropic, Uber, and Lyft use Apache Airflow to orchestrate AI and machine learning pipelines at scale on AWS.

Topics Include:

Steven Hillion leads data and AI at Astronomer
Apache Airflow surpassed Spark and Kafka in community metrics
Astronomer coordinates data flow like conductor orchestrating instrumental platforms
Organizations with data engineering teams use Airflow at scale
Customers already used Airflow for ML before official promotion
Uber and Lyft orchestrate pricing models using Airflow
Astronomer runs on AWS with close integration partnerships
OpenAI Anthropic and GitHub Copilot use Airflow for operations
Internal data team uses Airflow creating feedback loops
Evolved from constrained AI reports to agentic workflows
Platform monitors generative AI output quality at user interactions
Metadata and context increasingly critical for AI applications
Learn more at Astronomer’s Data FlowCast podcast

Participants:

Steven Hillion – SVP, Data and AI, Astronomer

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep192: Human-in-the-Loop: How Docupace Balances Innovation and Risk in Wealth Tech Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

Learn how Docupace transformed from cloud-native platform to AI-powered wealth tech leader, leveraging AWS partnerships and customer obsession to accelerate growth.

Topics Include:

Docupace Technologies has served wealth management firms for twenty years.
Three SaaS product lines streamline advisor workflows and back offices.
AI transforms both customer operations and Docupace's internal business practices.
Trust between advisors and investors drives conservative technology adoption approach.
Serving seven top-ten broker dealers demands careful data security strategies.
AI shifts financial systems from deterministic certainty to probabilistic outcomes.
Industry began AI adoption with simple meeting note-taking applications.
Docupace's agentic AI framework enables safe, observable, orchestrated agent deployment.
Multiple verification layers and human oversight ensure zero-error financial operations.
Internal AI implementation required nine months navigating change management hurdles.
Team curiosity and rapid experimentation matter more than traditional skill sets.
AWS customer obsession and partnership programs dramatically accelerate business growth.

Participants:

Michael Pinsker – Founder and President, Docupace Technologies

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep191: Building AI Success - How Boomi Automates Anything and Connects Everything Jan 28, 2026

Show notes

Boomi CEO Steve Lucas reveals how to flip AI's 95% failure rate to your favour with practical integration strategies, real-world agent deployments, and an AWS partnership.

Topics Include:

Boomi solves the forever problem of complexity across applications and systems
Twenty-five thousand customers use Boomi to automate anything and connect everything
Boomi moves more data per second than the entire Visa network
AI agents now integrate systems through simple commands, no coding required
Agentic platform built with AWS creates custom AI agents in real time
Use cases include expense monitoring and heart defibrillator battery checks daily
Automotive companies use AI agents to assess tariff risks across supply chains
Hospitals deploy agents to detect patient falls and alert medical professionals immediately
Control Tower co-innovated with AWS monitors and manages all AI agents centrally
Deterministic processes like payroll shouldn't use AI, probabilistic challenges should
Ninety-five percent of AI projects fail due to data access problems
Agentic workshops help companies identify high-ROI opportunities and achieve AI success

Participants:

Steve Lucas – Chairman & CEO, Boomi

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep190: The Future of Commerce Automation: How Fabric is Transforming Retail Operations Jan 26, 2026

Show notes

Fabric CTO Ankush Goyal reveals how AI Search is transforming commerce discovery and why merchants need AI agents to compete effectively.

Topics Include:

Fabric builds AI agents for commerce, solving merchant visibility challenges
Commerce shifting due to AI Search channels and smaller retail teams
Product Agent monitors and improves product visibility across AI channels
PetMeds uses Fabric to optimize AI Search and automate SKU onboarding
Fabric evolved from commerce platform company to AI agent solutions
Agentic and generative AI work together to optimize product catalogs
Fabric uses AWS EKS, Bedrock, S3, and Nova models heavily
AWS partnership connects Fabric with industry leaders and growth opportunities
AWS services enable reliable, cost-effective, and performant enterprise AI agents
Prototyping agents is easy, but enterprise-grade reliability is extremely challenging
Four key learnings: workflow reliability, context engineering, cost effectiveness, feedback loops
CTOs should define agent goals, guardrails, context, and evaluations early
Long-running workflow durability and snapshots prevent costly repeated work failures
Future innovations focus on specialized models, retrieval frameworks, automated evaluations
Merchants can evaluate AI Search performance at fabric.inc or LinkedIn

Participants:

Ankush Goyal – Chief Technology Officer, Fabric

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep189: Banking on AI - How Abrigo is Revolutionizing Community Finance with Intelligent Automation Jan 22, 2026

Show notes

Abrigo's Chief Product Technology Officer reveals how they're leveling the playing field for 2,400 community banks using AWS-powered AI to compete with billion-dollar financial institutions.

Topics Include:

Abrigo serves 2,400 community banks and credit unions across the US
They provide risk management, fraud detection, and digital loan origination solutions
Connect platform delivers data analytics for institutions with legacy systems
Community banks need instant digital experiences to compete with fintech upstarts
Customers expect Uber-like speed from application to cash within hours
Three technology waves transformed finance: iPhone, cloud computing, then AI
ChatGPT changed conversational experiences and knowledge search expectations in banking
AI enables instant policy search for new employee onboarding needs
Every minute saved from grunt work gets redeployed into customer relationships
Simple borrower experiences work across all demographics from boomers to millennials
Abrigo embraced agentic AI early using AWS Bedrock and Agent Core
New guardrails and evaluations accelerate deterministic workflow reimagination with agents

Participants:

Ravikumar Nemalikanti – Chief Product and Technology Officer, Abrigo

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ep188: Disruption, Culture and Technology – Halo's Unique Approach to Enterprise Innovation Jan 19, 2026

Show notes

Hear how Halo manages market disruption and technology innovation with their unique culture, helping them scale to be a leader in workflow automation software.

Topics Include:

Halo serves 125,000 teams across 75 countries with enterprise ITSM solutions
Paul Hamilton founded company 21 years ago as freelance IT consultant
Built ticketing software to track their own freelance client work originally
No marketing budget so mastered organic SEO without paid advertising spend
Reached number one Google ranking globally for help desk software 2006
Hired first employee in 2011 when co-founder wanted out
AWS partnership began years ago recognizing trajectory not current snapshot size
AWS team proactively delivered 20 percent infrastructure optimization cost savings recently
Halo reducing prices using savings for customer value creation
Hires graduates and trains them rather than poaching experienced enterprise talent
Monday morning all-company meetings ensure transparency with minimal management hierarchy levels
No traditional sales teams, culture emphasizes autonomy and employee ownership stakes
Technology completely rebuilt 2017-2018 delivering deployments in one-third typical timeframes
Total cost ownership 70 percent lower than competitors while winning tenders
Vision transcends software through music festivals, documentaries pioneering fulfilling workplace culture

Participants:

Paul Hamilton – CEO and Founder, Halo
Alison Kay – Vice President / Managing Director, AWS UKI

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

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