AWS for Software Companies Podcast

Discover how Zuora turned its own billing platform inward to track AI costs down to the individual engineer, giving CFOs the trust and auditability they demand.
Topics Include:
AWS's Achint Naveen opens, introduces Zuora as a key partner
Audience poll reveals AI monetization is still a struggle
Zuora's Katherine Shealy introduces the company's AI monetization focus
Zuora powers monetization for global brands like Twilio, Zoom
Their platform spans CPQ, billing, metering, and revenue recognition
Usage-based pricing has flipped seat-based SaaS models upside down
AI companies face a 20-point margin gap versus SaaS
Companies juggling multiple pricing models face major hidden complexity
Traditional pricing models are breaking down under AI's dynamic costs
Zuora's framework aligns teams early through an NPI-style process
Their tech lets companies iterate pricing at engineering speed
Zuora now tracks its own AI costs internally too
Zuora AI runs on AWS Bedrock and AgentCore infrastructure
AWS's Achint details the full stack behind Zuora AI
AgentCore Memory gives Zuora's agents secure, persistent context

Participants:
Katherine Shealy – Principal Product Marketing Manager, Zuora
Achint Naveen – Sr Account Manager, Amazon Web Services

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Sophos CSO Simon Reed reveals how attackers now operate like leveraged businesses—and how AI is making both sides of the cyber arms race dramatically more sophisticated.
Topics Include:
Intro: Simon Reed, CSO at Sophos, joins Kamil Davidov.
Sophos defends 625,000+ organizations with AI-native Fusion platform.
Sophos MDR runs the world's largest agentic SOC.
Simon's journey: cybersecurity since 2001, from graffiti to warfare.
Cyber threats framed as constant toxicity, not occasional lightning strikes.
Sophos spans small business to enterprise, giving unique threat visibility.
Attackers now operate as leveraged, ecosystem-driven businesses, not lone actors.
AI dramatically increases attack quality, speed, and sophistication.
AWS Local Zones cut latency for Sophos's threat intelligence cloud.
IntellX connects every product to real-time global threat data.
"Good day" means finding novelty before attackers exploit it.
Worst days: sudden, unpredictable supply chain compromise scenarios.
Sophos updates protection across 600,000 customers within minutes.
Decisions made fast, on incomplete data, balancing speed and risk.
Sophos has pursued AI and deep learning for eight-plus years.
Agentic AI's next phase reduces laborious human security work.
Simon prioritizes class-based, automation-scale defenses over budgets.
Sophos cut data platform costs 30%, migrated ahead of schedule.
Advice: hyper-engage AWS account teams, push for more.
Closing story: Sophos helped stop ransomware hitting hospitals during COVID.

Participants:
Simon Reed – Chief Security Officer, Sophos
Kamil Davidov – Sales Leader Israel ISV-BizApps, Amazon Web Services

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Vibe coding is accelerating code development within the Enterprise, but at what cost of security? Retool’s CEO shares how you can accelerate software development while managing the risks effectively.
Topics Include:
Internal software runs pharmacies, grocery checkouts, and airport check-ins daily
Retool manages and de-risks environment from insecure code
AI has driven a 10x surge in code volume since 2025
More code plus less human review means falling code quality
Non-engineers can now build working apps in minutes flat
But deploying and securing those apps remains genuinely difficult
Multiple CIOs found private company data exposed on the internet
Uncontrolled model choice is quietly driving up company costs
Attackers now deploy automated agent swarms, not lone hackers
Defense is asymmetric: one flaw in, everything must hold
Retool runs inside customers' own cloud, often on AWS
A single data choke point enables logging, audits, authorization
Guardrails, not their absence, actually let teams move faster
Security audits reveal major gaps in nearly all companies checked
Nearly all companies may face a serious hack within 18 months

Participants:
David Hsu – Founder, CEO, Retool

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

In a fascinating panel discussion, executives from Couchbase, SentinelOne and AWS share strategies ensuring the highest adoption and ROI when deploying AI and the pitfalls to avoid along the way.
Topics Include:
Agentic AI marks shift from clever data to autonomous agents
Organizations sit at different AI maturity levels, not uniform
Only 31% of adopters see measurable financial impact from AI
Adoption friction, not access, is what stalls most AI value
Segment your workforce: innovators, pragmatic majority, and reluctant laggards
Give innovators tools, budget, and freedom before chasing laggards
Visible recognition programs turn early innovators into internal role models
AI-ready data infrastructure remains the top blocker to real adoption
Future AI value concentrates at customer-facing, transaction-level touchpoints
Coding tools see fast uptake; broader business adoption lags behind
AI is quietly rewriting SEO, SEM, and lead-routing strategy
Agent trust requires both clean data and strong safety guardrails
Human-in-the-loop review lets AI handle investigation, humans decide outcomes
In agentic AI, go-to-market partnerships matter more than past tech waves
Strong tech-platform partnerships help smaller vendors punch above their weight
Marketplace listings can cut sales cycles from months to weeks
Best partnerships form around solving hard problems, not quarterly quotas
Confidence gap: only 38% of employees feel AI-ready

Participants:
Deirdre Toner – President & Chief Commercial Officer, Couchbase
Eran Ashkenazi - Chief Business Officer, SentinelOne
Connie de Lange – Director, AWS Strategic Customer & Partner Marketing, North America, Amazon Web Services
Matt Wood – Chief AI & Technology Officer, Amazon Web Services

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Demandbase's Vice President of Product explains why they deleted a fully-approved AI architecture two months before launch — and how the rebuild surpassed some of their customer’s highest expectations.
Topics Include:
AWS's Achint Naveen introduces Demandbase's VP of Product, Chad Holdorf
Demandbase unifies sales, marketing, and revenue data into one view
November's architecture used many specialized agents, all committee-approved
That design failed constantly — only a 30% conversation pass rate
On May 11th, the team deleted the entire architecture
Rebuilt in May with AWS Strands: one simpler, flexible agent
Pass rate leapt from 30% to 94% almost overnight
Week two retention rose from the low 20s to upper 80s
Weekly active users grew 45% week-over-week after launch
Real customer interviews play, calling the new AI a "dream"
One user cut an hour-long report down to fifteen minutes
Customers now trace ad impressions directly to closed deals
Holdorf's advice: delete and rebuild when architecture gets too complex
AWS's Naveen walks through Bedrock, AgentCore, and Strands
AgentCore Memory highlighted as Demandbase's next area of exploration

Participants:
Chad Holdorf – Vice President of Product Management, Demandbase
Achint Naveen – Sr Account Manager, Amazon Web Services

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/