AWS Canada opens Partner Innovation Hub to help partners move AI from prototype to production

Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, your host for the show.

So here’s a number worth thinking about. 650,000 Canadian businesses are already on the AI adoption path, but only a third of them have actually mastered it. The other two-thirds are still at a very basic level of implementation, and the challenge isn’t getting started, it’s getting serious. Moving from a proof of concept that generates excitement in the boardroom to a production solution that actually changes how the business runs. That gap between prototype and production is the problem AWS Canada is trying to help its partners solve, and on June 2nd, the company formally launched its answer, the Partner Innovation Hub in Toronto.

I was on site the day before the launch for a couple of conversations. First, I sat down with Martin Brazinet, head of technology at AWS Canada, who walked me through the vision behind the centre, why it’s built around partners and what success actually looks like. Then I spoke with Dinesh Bhavsar, director of AI, emerging technologies and innovation at CGI, one of the four launch partners, about what the space means for his clients and how he thinks about sparking curiosity with customers who may not yet know what questions to ask.

Let’s get right into it, starting with my chat with Martin Brazinet.

Thanks for taking the time, really appreciate it, especially on the eve of the centre going public and getting it launched out there.Martin Brazinet: Oh, thank you very much. It’s my pleasure to be here with you, Rob.

Rob: For folks who aren’t familiar with the concept or haven’t heard it yet, can you kind of give us the elevator pitch, I guess, for the Partner Innovation Centre – what it is and why Toronto is the place for it?

Martin Brazinet: Yeah, no, for sure, Rob. Every day my team is working with customers and helping customers adopt AI on a continuous basis. We see a lot of excitement from customers who wanted to get deeper into AI. I believe in terms of Canadian customers, there are 650,000 customers already in Canada that have adopted AI. But surprisingly, only about a third of them have really mastered AI – two-thirds of them are still at a very basic level of AI adoption. And we see that, and customers want to get some support on having a better understanding of how they can adopt AI at a more transformative level that touches their industry and touches their requirement. And the AWS Partner Innovation Hub is really there for that – to provide that space where we can see solutions in action, having an immersive environment where we can, with our partners, show some solutions that are transformative, and then talk about an action plan on how to put that in effect within their environment.

Rob: You guys have had other innovation spaces, innovation hubs, innovation centres, that kind of thing globally. Can you kind of tell me a bit about how you’ve built on those ideas? And especially, I’m interested because you chose to put “Partner” right on the tin in terms of the name of this centre – why was the partner focus so important for this one?

Martin Brazinet: Yeah, of course. So I guess two-fold here. From a GenAI Innovation Centre perspective – and this is called GenAIIC – GenAIIC is something that we started in 2023 with a lot of demand from our customers. And this is based on our own experience of bringing customers into an immersive environment, thinking about their scenario, showing them solutions and prototypes. And that has been super successful – that was an AWS practice. We’ve brought thousands of customers globally to adopt the solutions that we were presenting. I think it’s 65% of the solutions that went through our GenAIIC that went to production, and some of them just within 45 days. Over time, we’ve adopted a lot of partner motion as part of the GenAIIC in order to scale it and bring way more industry knowledge, industry specificity. And so we took the best of the GenAIIC in terms of the demos and the industry specifics, and we made it more scalable. And this is how the hub here that we’re implementing in Toronto came about. Toronto is the first Canadian hub that we’re launching, and it’s really because we see that Canadian customers really want to have that partner support to launch their GenAI journeys. In fact, 70% of our customers are really thinking about using partners to be deploying their GenAI environment, and having an environment where we can bring our launch partners – that we’ll talk about in a minute – to bring that cross-industry specificity.

Rob: Let’s talk a little bit about one of the problems that you’re designing to solve here – the dynamic that you see where AI projects stall out between proof of concept and actually getting out there and earning their keep in the business. How widespread a problem is that for Canadian partners talking to their customers today?

Martin Brazinet: Well, I think that’s one of the problems, right? Our customers have started to adopt AI, and they had that first stage of adoption of having pretty basic implementation. And when it comes to having more complex use cases to address in terms of really trying to transform their industry, they lack some of the knowledge that is required to move this to production. And this is where working with partners such as the launch partners that we have here – which are CGI, Dedicated, Elevata, and OpsGuru – they’ve been going to those types of projects dozens of times. They know how to move from proof of concept to production, building the right runbook, upscaling the customer environment, and they are that proof of success that can really reassure customers in that journey to moving to production.

Rob: We talked a little bit before this about a shift that you’re seeing in how purchasing decisions are being made – kind of away from IT and towards line of business, the people who actually own the ultimate solution. How do you find that’s changing what a partner actually does to spec, to architect, to close a deal?

Martin Brazinet: Well, it comes back to the fact that right now, the solutions that were initially planned were very generic. When you’re buying an AI solution off the shelf, it’s relatively non-complex to bring to production, but then you don’t transform your business as much. And it’s really where you see the partner with different depth of expertise – whether it’s consulting expertise that really understands how you need to shift your production environment if you’re in a manufacturing environment, or if you’re a global organization – having the partners that understand those different dynamics and can bring their expertise to help them launch and transform your business.

Rob: Is this a Canada-specific challenge, or something you’re seeing around the world? And if it is sort of a universal challenge – which I suspect at least to some degree it is – is there anything that’s specifically unique about the Canadian market and its peculiarities?

Martin Brazinet: Yeah. I think overall Canadian businesses are, in some aspect, maybe less risk-taking than some other countries.

Rob: You would not be the first who said that.

Martin Brazinet: Yeah. So being supported by a partner that has the experience to move this into your environment is certainly reassuring to customers in terms of the chances of success and avoiding costly mistakes that some may have made. So I think this is kind of maybe more unique to Canada, and this is why the number that I shared earlier – of 70%, 70% of customers are hoping to get their GenAI implementation using a partner – there’s certainly a connection between those two data points there.

Rob: Yeah. I sometimes use the term, “Canadian businesses like to have someone walk through the minefield first and see where it is.” In the case of the right partner who’s done this a bunch of times, they hopefully know where all those mines are beforehand, and specific to your industry.

Rob: So let’s talk about the centre itself and the experience. Walk me through – if I’m a partner and I’m bringing a customer in here, what does that look like in practice? How does the experience unfold?

Martin Brazinet: Yeah. So I think the first thing is every visit to the hub is expected to be a tailored visit. It’s not a demo centre where everybody gets the same experience. A partner is going to take the time to really tailor it with demos and a talk track that are certainly pertinent to the customer that is going to come. So with that in mind, the visit has two dimensions. The first dimension is to work through that immersive demo centre where they’re going to see curated demos that speak to their industry. And it’s going to give some form of reference in terms of the art of the possible – what is the most innovative organization in my specific industry thinking about, and solving problems in different ways? So I think that’s a very intuitive moment where the lights are turning on and you see the art of the possible. And then we’re going to shift to the second aspect of the visit, which is the workshop. And the workshop is where you build that alignment. We have the leadership of our customers present there, and it’s often a diverse set of personas that are going to come – it’s going to be the C-suite and the architects and the line of business, not just the CIO. And we’re bringing the partners’ architects and our architects as well from AWS. And altogether we’re going to try to align the value map of the use cases that they’re trying to solve from a customer perspective, and define what the workstreams are – whether it’s to do a better understanding of the KPI for that use case that we’re thinking about, or whether it’s to go directly to a proof of concept or proof of value, or just to bring it to production. We’re going to get that customized experience. So by the end of the session, the customer walks out of here not only having seen really impressive technology, but they’re going to walk out of here with a plan in hand and documented next steps that we can go and pursue together.

Rob: And I think that last bit may inform this, but I’m curious what you think is the most powerful thing about this space – the thing that you think is really going to get things moving, get things unstuck and create some momentum toward getting AI solutions that are meaningful, that are delivering business outcomes.

Martin Brazinet: You know, that’s a good question. There’s certainly the inspiration moment that is quite powerful – really understanding how technology can now solve a problem in a completely different way. And we try to say that to our customers: if you are going to implement a generative AI solution, don’t try to just automate the steps that are already part of your process, but try to look at it through a completely different lens so that you get a disproportionately better outcome. But to answer your question directly, I think some of the most powerful things that come out of here is the alignment – getting the leadership alignment of our customers, all being in the room, realizing the same capabilities together, and then brainstorming with subject matter experts on what the next steps are. You walk out of here with a consensus on what the best next steps are. And I think that alignment from the leadership perspective is really, really powerful.

Rob: Is it a best practice to lock the door and not let anyone have pizza until everyone’s got on the same page?

Martin Brazinet: Where did you learn about that? I cannot reveal my sources.

Rob: So if I’m a partner who’s participating here and I want to bring a customer in – what does that look like in terms of lead time, in terms of setup, in terms of thinking through what I want to be showing and talking about?

Martin Brazinet: I mean, I guess it depends on where you are in terms of your journey. There’s not a one-size-fits-all. If you’re pretty advanced in terms of defining the outcomes that you’re trying to drive and it’s really about understanding what technology we can align, it’s probably something that we can get ready to do in a couple of days. But if you’re still at the ideation level and you don’t really have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to do, there’s probably more work to do in terms of gathering the requirements and understanding what “good” looks like in terms of the outcome of that session. So I’d say anywhere between a couple of days to a week or two of prep work.

Rob: And I guess lead time will depend on how popular the place is and how many customers are lining up outside the door.

Martin Brazinet: Absolutely. And that’s why we have a few launch partners – so that we start with scale and each of them bring their own set of capabilities. And we also have the scaling factor behind having a few large launch partners with us.

Rob: What’s the vision for the broader partner community going forward? You’re starting with four – what’s the message in terms of a roadmap for more partners having access, and how are you looking at what the qualifying metrics will be to get on the list to bring customers in?

Martin Brazinet: Yeah. Well, I think to your point, this is a starting point. We’re starting with four and it’s not an ultra-gated approach – we want to scale. We want to bring partners that have differentiative offerings. I think that’s the main selection criteria. We’re looking to bring differentiative offerings from the perspective of either industry or type of use case. But this is expected to be a transformation session – not to talk about “oh, I just need to migrate from A to Z.” So if a partner has a specificity in terms of the industry or the way that they tackle problems, we’re certainly willing to hear it and scale our capabilities here.

Rob: What are some of the things that you think will make for the best customers to bring in here, in terms of where they’re at in their journey – what the partners have identified as being beneficial for them versus maybe what the customer themselves has already figured out is beneficial for them?

Martin Brazinet: I think it’s about rotating on the personas. We often pivot when we think about technology and AWS and cloud and AI to the tech owners of the businesses – we go to the CIOs and the architects. But a lot of the expectation from AI and generative AI is a revenue growth imperative that our customers are looking at, and that’s really a board-level priority. So we’re hoping to get more than just the usual technical leaders. Let’s go to the line of business – the people that are really interfacing with the industry problem they’re trying to solve – and see how AI and generative capabilities are now able to accelerate the innovation within that space.

Rob: You mentioned the art of the possible on the customer side. I’m curious on the partner side – as I imagine we’re close enough to having customers going through here regularly that some of the partners have started to identify who they want to bring in – any surprises, without naming names or with naming names if you wish, in terms of what you’ve seen partners bringing to the table in terms of the types of customers or the types of things they want to be showing off?

Martin Brazinet: Yeah, well, it’s a little bit early because we’re really launching this today – it’s going to be announced at the summit the day after tomorrow. So I think we’ll see that and make those discoveries as we go. We’re super excited and our partner ecosystem is really excited about that. But I can’t wait to get some of those learnings.

Rob: So if this works out the way that you’re hoping, what does success look like a year from now? What are you measuring – is it deal velocity, customer outcomes that are actually out there, something else?

Martin Brazinet: That’s a good one. I think the real measure of success is moving to production. Because that’s where the rubber meets the road and we are able to measure the outcome that we’re trying to drive. If it just turns out that we’re visiting the innovation hub and having great discussions and we walk out with a roadmap, but none of this goes into production – I think that’s the exact problem that we’re solving for. I’d say moving to production, and deepening the expertise into different industries, and really thinking about solving the problem in a different way – so that when we solve a problem in a different way, we can scale those learnings to other customers and help the Canadian industry evolve in that matter.

Rob: Big picture – how significant do you think this place, and places like this, will ultimately play in moving the needle on AI adoption in the Canadian market, especially for partners and for customers?

Martin Brazinet: Well, I think the opportunity is immense. If I just go back to my initial statement – there are 650,000 Canadian customers and two-thirds of which are at that very basic implementation of AI. We need to unblock those customers. We need to accelerate them. And I think places like this one are a way to get there. So I expect it’s going to be really impactful, providing this format is what customers need. They need to see things through a different lens and they definitely need the support of the partner community to move to implementation and get them to production. So I’m hoping it’s going to be really impactful for Canadian customers to accelerate their transformation. I think the number that I saw is that we expect 85% of the Canadian industry needs to change within the next five years, driven by AI adoption. So if we want our Canadian customers to stay innovative, to stay relevant, to be as productive and innovative as the rest of the industry, I think doing those experiments that we’re doing here with the hub is how we can help them. That’s a lot of folks through the centre.

Rob: Good luck with the launch and getting partners in here and getting some of those AI projects moving forward. Thanks for taking the time.

Martin Brazinet: No, thank you very much. It was great speaking with you today.

That was Martin Brazinet from AWS Canada on the vision behind the Partner Innovation Hub and what it’s designed to unlock for Canadian businesses on their AI journeys. Now let’s hear the partner side of the story. Dinesh Bhavsar is director of AI, emerging technologies and innovation at CGI – one of the four companies tapped as launch partners for the facility. His take on what customers actually need, and the honest conversations partners sometimes need to have, is a nice complement to what we just heard from AWS itself.

Rob: Dinesh, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.

Dinesh Bhavsar: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it as well.

Rob: Tell me a little bit about where your customers at CGI are at with AI. Obviously one of the precepts here – and this is something I’ve heard from partners for at least the last year – the idea that we start out strong, we have lots of ambition to do AI, but we don’t necessarily know what we want to do, we don’t necessarily know how we want to do it. We don’t know what that outcome looks like. What are you seeing from customers today in terms of where their AI journey falls off, for want of a better phrase?

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think there’s a broad spectrum of maturity when it comes to understanding what AI is, what it’s not, and what it can do for the organization. So we’ve had great clients who have a really good, clear understanding of what AI can do for their business and their business processes. And then we’ve had clients who are just, “Hey, I need to implement AI – Dinesh, help me implement AI.” And it’s those clients where we really have to have the honest conversation about the fact that if you’re starting with AI or any technology as the solution, you’ve already failed. Because you haven’t thought about what problem you’re actually trying to solve, and yet you’ve jumped to AI being the solution for all things in life. I don’t think that’s the case in many instances, but you do have to have those honest conversations with clients about that.

Rob: Tell me about how you guys got involved here with the centre. At what point did AWS pull you in, and what was the initial reaction to the idea of doing this kind of an innovation hub?

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think at CGI – and especially within our team in the emerging technologies, AI and innovation team – we really try to drive a culture of innovation, a culture of customer-first mindset. And through our partnership with AWS, we were able to bring clients in to work through that concept and that practice. So that really allowed our clients to understand what it really means to put customer-first in every opportunity, in every challenge that they’re trying to solve. And I think through that partnership, through that collaboration, this hub really allows us to bring that to life and really bring clients into that journey. And we’re hoping to bring more of those experiences to our clients, as well as our CGI partners. I think CGI as a whole is looking to innovate and drive more customer-centric, or client-centric delivery. And I think this practice, this centre, will allow us to showcase some of that as well with our partners.

Rob: What do you think will be the most impactful, especially when it comes to the demos and the things that they can show off here? I know it’s hard to predict because every customer is going to be different, but just in terms of things that you think might really get into a customer’s mind.

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think it’s the application of AI. Real-world scenarios, real-world application – I think that’s going to stand out. It’s very easy to think about the theoretical aspects of everything that’s happening in the AI space. Like I said, clients can get very lost. All of us can get really lost in everything that’s happening. But when you try to bring it down to real, tangible examples where people can see it in action, that relates to their role or relates to their business process – I think that’s when AI really becomes real. And I think this allows us to showcase that.

Rob: What do you think it’s going to do in terms of speed to value, speed to outcomes – whatever you want to call it – in terms of the sales and architecting cycle that you guys go through with customers?

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think it’ll accelerate that quite a bit. Again, I’m a big advocate of solutions – real screens, real models, real-world solutions – and less of theoretical slides. I think the days of current state assessments and advisory alone are of the past. I think clients expect us to show real working solutions. And once you actually have that – what I always say is 70%, 80% there – you only really have the balance to customize for the client. And that allows you to move a lot faster than how we do today.

Rob: You guys, I have to presume, are very familiar with the idea of working with the C-suite and working across the business. But I’m curious how much more of a shift you’ve seen towards line of business and C-suite as we’re looking at this AI technology stack.

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think we’ve gone from the world of being curious and wanting to understand more about AI at that level – and a bit of FOMO, I think – we’ve had executives that are in the race for the sake of being in the race to deploy AI – to more of, “Okay, I understand the technology now. I really need to understand the ROI or the value that it’s going to help drive in our business. What impact does it have on our employees?” So technology alone is great, but really you need to surround yourself with the human-centered, customer-centric practices – like design thinking, systems thinking, for example – which are great practices to surround yourself with AI or any technology. And I think C-suites are now understanding what that human impact is going to be. Efficiencies, sure, but it’s really around empowering their employees with more decision-making power at a pace that hasn’t been there in the past. So I think that’s evolved. Like I said, there are some notions out there of being in the AI space because it’s the thing to do right now. But I think executives, I think middle managers are all taking a step back to really understand what value it can bring, and really understand the cost of maintaining and creating these models. So I think the maturity has evolved quite a bit.

Rob: How important is it that it’s a physical location? You guys are obviously global in scale with customers both local and international. And the whole concept of the cloud, of AI, of all this – is that it’s out there, it’s everywhere, all at the same time. And yet it does come down to getting everyone in the same room and hashing it out, working it out, and getting everyone aligned on the same value.

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I mean, I’m a big advocate of in-person experiences. So I think having a physical space does allow you to bring a different mindset when you walk into it – whether that’s how it’s laid out and how people can navigate the space, complemented by the technology there to help you think differently, and then of course the collaborative spaces that surround it. Whether it’s workshops, groupthink, communal seating – I think all of that makes a big difference in a space like the Innovation Hub here. I think it does help that people get away from their day-to-day routine and come through an experience like this, because I think it does help you think differently, think more boldly. And it allows you to, again like I said before, be vulnerable, ask all the questions, and know that you’re surrounded in a safe environment that allows you to do that and fosters it. So physical space, to me, is great. I’m a big advocate of whiteboarding. I love whiteboarding. I’m such a visual person that I just draw it all out and see how it all works. And you’d be surprised to see how quickly decisions can get made when everyone’s in a room together, focused on one thing and not distracted by the emails and the phone calls – but really allowing themselves for focused work, group work.

Rob: It sounds like almost the benefits of an off-site type of meeting, just where the site involved happens to be purpose-driven for what you’re trying to do with it.

Dinesh Bhavsar: Exactly. And you want to be intentional. You want to come in here for a purpose. You want to come here with intention. And you do need facilitation of that. And I think the space helps facilitate that thinking. I think the people in the room can help facilitate that as well. But I think it is much more important to have a space like this than to not.

Rob: How are you thinking about the customers who come in here, especially in terms of prioritization? Is it the biggest opportunities first, or is it you want to look at those who have big hairy audacious goals, or those who maybe don’t quite realize yet what could be the goal?

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, it’s probably the last part. In my world in emerging technologies and innovation, our role is really to help clients think about things they haven’t thought about yet, help CGI partners think about things they haven’t thought about yet, and really the art of the possible. So I think having clients come through here and really seeing what it could be is very beneficial. I’m hoping that seeing real-world solutions really helps to say, “Okay, well, what is AI and how does it help me and my business process? And what does that mean for my employees? Or what does it mean for my customers? Or what does it mean for my partners?” And so I think those questions can all be sort of answered in a space like this, in an experience like this, with real solutions. So yeah, I think it’ll be great. I don’t necessarily prioritize in terms of the size of the pie. My job is more about sparking curiosity with all our clients. And so we focus a lot more on strategic pursuits than tactical delivery.

Rob: In terms of the kinds of demos you want to be delivering, I’m curious how customized, how granular do you want to go on setting those up? Is it a matter of the more customized the better, or do you want to keep it at an industry level? What does best case look like for you?

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think for me, one thing is keeping it as simple as possible – that will get the most adoption and understanding of what we’re trying to showcase. I think industry-wide definitely helps, because then you can see what others are doing, or where the industry is headed, and how that can apply to your specific scenario. And then you have to flex, right? So I think there are certain demos that are very business-friendly – where you do have executives come in and want to understand those solutions at a high level – and then you can have it so that you can go technically deep as well for the right audience and have those conversations. So you do need to be able to flex the demo, but I would say industry-wide, what’s truly emerging – and again, focus on what clients perhaps are not thinking of or considering yet – and really show them the art of the possible.

Rob: Last one for me – a year from now, once getting folks in here is a frequent experience and you’ve got lots of reps on it, what are you thinking about in terms of one specific type of AI success story that you hope will have come out of bringing a customer into this facility?

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think I hope to bring a lot more clients through this experience, as I call it. I’m hoping we can bring real-world AI solutions that have impacted not only the client themselves, but I think it’d be great to see AI supporting social good, and us being able to dive into responsible innovation as well. So an AI solution that’s helping Canadians collectively across the country would be a great AI use case. And we’re doing a lot of work at CGI in terms of responsible innovation and how do we drive AI for good, for Canadians, with Canadians. And I’m hoping that use case or something gets sprung from this space.

Rob: Big goals. I wish you well on that.

Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Rob: Thank you.

There you have it – Martin Brazinet from AWS Canada and Dinesh Bhavsar from CGI.

I’d like to thank both Martin and Dinesh for their time, and for carving out space for these conversations in the middle of what was a busy launch week.

A couple things that stuck with me from these two interviews. Martin’s numbers are worth sitting with: of 650,000 Canadian businesses already on the AI journey, only about a third have gone deep. Two-thirds are still at the basics – not for lack of ambition. It’s just that moving from proof of concept to production is genuinely hard. It takes industry expertise, stakeholder alignment, and someone who’s been through the minefield enough times to know where the mines are.

What I appreciate about Dinesh’s perspective is how direct he is with customers about the starting point. If someone comes to CGI and says, “I need to implement AI – help me,” he’ll be the first to tell them that they’ve already made a mistake, because they jumped to the solution before identifying the problem. That’s a conversation a lot of partners are navigating right now, and it’s a healthy one to hear out loud.

The hub itself is an interesting bet on the idea that getting the C-suite, the architects, and the line-of-business people in the same room, seeing the same demos, and walking out with a shared plan is what actually gets these projects unstuck. The model has a good track record globally – 65% of solutions through AWS’s GenAIIC program have made it to production – so there’s something to build on here.

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Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.