From SiliconANGLE · Zeus Kerravala · · 1m 50s
AWS' Colleen Aubrey: Stop inventing new AI metrics, it’s your business metrics that matter
AWS' Colleen Aubrey urges IT leaders to focus on business metrics instead of AI metrics for real impact.
In brief
AWS' Colleen Aubrey urges IT leaders to focus on business metrics instead of AI metrics for real impact. AWS' Colleen Aubrey says business metrics, not new AI metrics, should drive AI success for companies. Originally reported by SiliconANGLE.
AI metrics confusion
IT leaders struggle to measure AI success without clear business metrics.
“i worry that people start trying to come up with new metrics to measure the impact of ai but its the same metrics its your business metrics that matter”
Colleen Aubrey's background
AWS senior vice president with 20+ years at Amazon building customer products.
Connect family success
Connect for contact center achieved success through deep operational experience.
“connect for the contact center was probably our most successful example”
Feature parity trap
AI projects that stall try to replicate entire workflows instead of fixing narrow pain points.
“they understood they weren’t going to achieve feature parity”
Business metrics focus
Wells Vehicle Electronics cut inventory by 7% while expanding monitored SKUs from 20 to 2,000.
AI doesn't remove bottlenecks
Amazon improved deployment velocity by fixing test coverage and pipelines, not the coding assistant.
“the velocity didn’t come from the coding assistant it came from fixing everything downstream”
Own the outcome
Amazon redesigned roles around outcomes instead of tasks as ai takes over responsibilities.
“the only choice you can’t make is to own the task you have to choose to own the outcome”
Humorphism philosophy
AWS prioritizes ai that fits existing workflows over creating new interfaces.
“shipping good ai with a bad user experience will fail in my opinion”
Connect Talent maturity
Connect Talent reached general availability in september with early customers deploying.
“connect talent reached general availability only in september and has early customers in deployment”
Key takeaways for it leaders
Pick a wedge, kill ai roi slides, budget for downstream fixes, rewrite roles around outcomes.
Final message
The ai era rewards companies that pick sharp problems and fix the plumbing they expose.
“the ai era won’t reward companies with the most pilots it will reward those that pick a sharp problem fix the plumbing it exposes”
AWS re:Invent event
AWS re:Invent runs nov 30-dec 4 2026 for ai and cloud technology leaders.
Author background
Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at zk research with expertise in ai and cloud.
Connect family products
Connect Customer, Connect Talent, Connect Health and Connect Decisions are aws ai products.
Here's the gist
AWS' Colleen Aubrey says business metrics, not new AI metrics, should drive AI success for companies.
