# AWS CFO: AI is moving beyond efficiency to rethinking business > John Felton, AWS finance chief, says companies are shifting from using AI to cut costs to building new revenue products and customer experiences. - Title: AWS CFO: AI is moving beyond efficiency to rethinking business - Summary: John Felton, AWS finance chief, says companies are shifting from using AI to cut costs to building new revenue products and customer experiences. AWS CFO… - Keywords: aws, john felton, artificial intelligence, business strategy, cloud computing, ai adoption, finance, CFO, moving, beyond, efficiency, rethinking - Source: Fortune — https://fortune.com/2026/10/08/aws-pricing-team-18-tab-excel-model-into-ai-chatbot-evaluate-customer-deals-cfo - Author: Sheryl Estrada - Read time: 2 min - Topics: aws, john felton, artificial intelligence, business strategy, cloud computing, ai adoption, finance ## The AI conversation is shifting Companies are moving from improving existing work with AI to rethinking what their business can do. John Felton, SVP and CFO of Amazon Web Services, says this marks a fundamental change in how organisations approach artificial intelligence. ## AWS customers are still early Felton speaks regularly with AWS customers, including fellow CFOs, and said their AI adoption is uneven. Many are still early in their broader cloud and IT modernisation efforts, a prerequisite for deploying AI at scale. > I think in general, I would say it feels early across the board. ## Focus has shifted from cost-cutting Two years ago, customer AI discussions focused largely on productivity and cutting costs. That is changing. Felton said there is now much more focus on using AI for new revenue products and new customer experiences. > How do I use AI for new revenue products, for new customer experiences? ## AWS is a one hundred sixty nine billion dollar business AWS is now a one hundred sixty nine billion annualised business. Felton has been with Amazon for more than twenty years and became AWS finance chief in two thousand twenty four, reporting to Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky. ## The bigger shift is rethinking processes Felton said the bigger shift is from adding AI to an existing process to rethinking the process itself. What impresses him is seeing companies move toward an AI first mindset, using AI to rethink what the business should be. > That is where a bunch of customers, including ourselves, really see a lot more value. ## AWS pricing team built an AI chatbot AWS's pricing team had relied on a complicated Excel model spanning eighteen tabs to evaluate customer deals. The team converted it into a chatbot interface that lets users explore scenarios through natural language questions about prices and payment terms. ## Another team expanded what it could check Another AWS team built an AI agent to compare payment terms in customer contracts with those recorded in AWS's payment system. Previously, employees checked a sample of contracts. The agent allows the team to check all of them instead. > Let's not just do a sample size, let's do all of it. ## Felton encourages daily AI experimentation Inside AWS's finance organisation, Felton is encouraging employees to participate in AI transformation rather than wait for direction. His instruction is straightforward: use AI every day. He wants them to identify opportunities themselves, as they understand their work better than he does. > Use AI every day. ## Felton uses Amazon Quick himself Felton uses Amazon Quick, an AI assistant for work, to query supporting materials prepared for board meetings and locate answers in underlying files. He sees that kind of everyday experimentation as important for CFOs figuring out where AI fits in their organisations. ## Key takeaway AWS CFO John Felton says companies are moving beyond using AI for productivity gains to rethinking business models and building new revenue streams with AI at the centre.