Microsoft safety exec Shawn Bice is returning to Amazon Internet Providers as VP of AI Providers, main the corporate’s Automated Reasoning Group as AWS doubles down on making AI brokers extra dependable.
Bice will report back to Swami Sivasubramanian, Amazon’s VP of Agentic AI, in keeping with an inner AWS e mail Monday afternoon, considered by GeekWire.
“We’re at an inflection level with Agentic AI,” Sivasubramanian wrote within the e mail, explaining that bringing AI and automatic reasoning collectively is important to constructing reliable brokers.
It’s a full-circle transfer for Bice. He labored at Microsoft early in his profession and spent 5 years working AWS’s database portfolio earlier than one other former AWS chief, Charlie Bell, recruited him again to Microsoft in 2022 to assist construct the Redmond firm’s revamped safety group.
At Microsoft, Bell stepped down from that safety management position in February to grow to be a person contributor.
Amazon’s Automated Reasoning Group makes use of a self-discipline often known as neurosymbolic AI, which mixes conventional AI’s pattern-matching skills with mathematical methods that may show whether or not software program is doing what it’s speculated to do.
Within the e mail, Sivasubramanian wrote that bringing automated reasoning and AI collectively is “the elemental premise” behind AWS’s funding within the discipline, calling it essential to constructing brokers that companies can belief to behave on their very own.
AWS has been dealing with questions concerning the reliability of AI brokers in its personal operations. In February, Amazon pushed again on a Monetary Occasions report that its Kiro AI coding device had brought on AWS outages, although it acknowledged a restricted disruption to a single service after an AI agent was allowed to make modifications with out human oversight.
At Microsoft, Bice’s position had expanded to Company Vice President of Safety Platform & AI, overseeing Microsoft Safety Copilot, Microsoft Sentinel, and AI safety analysis, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile.
Earlier than that, he spent a yr as president of merchandise and expertise at Splunk, sandwiched between his two stints on the bigger firms.
Bice initially joined Microsoft in 1997 and spent greater than 17 years there throughout two stints, in roles that included managing SQL Server and Azure cloud knowledge companies. He left for AWS in 2016, the place he ran the database portfolio — together with Amazon Aurora, DynamoDB, and RDS — for 5 years earlier than departing in 2021.
He additionally serves on the board of WaFd Financial institution, the place he chairs the expertise committee.
