Ariel Kelman, VP,Worldwide Marketing at AWS sits down with John Furrier & Rebecca Knight at Informatica World 2019 in Las Vegas, NV. #INFA19 #theCUBE #AWS https://siliconangle.com/2019/05/24/qa-ai-machine-learning-tech-evolves-aws-keeps-pace-infa19/ Q&A: As AI and machine-learning tech evolves, AWS keeps pace Major data trends occurring in the enterprise are focused on cloud and artificial intelligence platforms. But while companies are often eager to learn more about this tech, they aren’t quite sure how they will benefit, according to Ariel Kelman, vice president of worldwide marketing at Amazon Web Services Inc. “Machine-learning and AI are really at the forefront of a lot of discussions in enterprise IT, and there’s massive interest, but it’s still early,” said Kelman (pictured). “One of the things we’re seeing companies really focused on now is just getting all their data ready to do the machine-learning training and training all their people to be able to use new skills.” Kelman spoke with John Furrier and Rebecca Knight, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Informatica World event in Las Vegas. They discussed some of the major trends occurring in both cloud and AI environments, new developments for AWS and what the company is offering its customers in terms of education (see the full interview with transcript here). The interview was condensed for clarity. (* Disclosure below.) Knight: What are you seeing as the major cloud and AI trends and what are your customers telling you? Kelman: We’re seeing tons of interest. It’s still very early, but … getting all the data imported and ready, it’s almost doubled or tripled in importance as it was when people were just trying to do analytics. Now, they’re doing machine-learning as well. We’re seeing huge interest in that. Furrier: What’s your relationship with Informatica? Kelman: We’ve been working together for a long time, and it’s very complementary. I think the relationship really started deepening when we released Redshift in 2013. And having so many customers that wanted to get data into the cloud to do data we’re housing, we’re already using Informatica to help get the data loaded and cleansed. And so really they’re one of the great partners that’s fueling moving data into the cloud and helping our customers be more successful with Redshift. Knight: What are some best practices that have emerged in working with companies that require a lot of pre-work, because they need to be very thoughtful about getting their data sorted? Kelman: I think the number one thing I recommend is to first take a step back from the data and to focus on what your business requirements are. Companies sometimes will have a data science-driven project. OK, here’s all the data we have. Let’s put it in one place. However, they may not be spending time proportionate to the value of the data. That’s one of the key things we see. Just trying to come up with a strong plan around what answers you’re trying to get. What questions you need answers to. Furrier: You guys are creating a lot of awareness. I see a lot of billboards everywhere, a lot of TV ads. Is that part of the strategy to get you guys more brand awareness? Kelman: That’s all part of our strategy. What we’re trying to do is communicate to the world how our customers are being successful using our technology, specifically machine-learning and AI. It’s one of those things where so many companies want to do it, but they say, “Well, what am I supposed to use it for?” If you dumb down what marketing is at AWS, it’s inspiring people about what they can run in the cloud with AWS. What use cases they should consider us for, and then we spend a lot of energy giving them the technical education they need, so they can be successful using our products. At the end of the day, we make money when our customers are successful using our products. Knight: One of the themes that’s really emerging in this conversation is the need to make sure developers are ready and that your people are skilled and know what they need to know. How is AWS thinking about the skills gap? ... (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Informatica World 2019. Neither Informatica LLC, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)