In Season 5, Episode 1, Karl and Jon are joined by Peter Sankauscas, an AWS Hero and User Group Leader. They discuss whether AI is replacing younger employees and what that could mean for businesses, OpenAI’s potential investment from Amazon, and AWS leadership changes — including Peter DeSantis’s new role. They also cover AWS flat-rate pricing plans for CloudFront and WAF, the 2026 Answers for AWS survey, and even ask whether AI data centres could be affecting the world’s weather.

04:47 - AI replacing young employees

AWS CEO Matt Garman stated that replacing young employees with AI is a bad idea for businesses. The discussion highlighted the importance of junior employees for company growth, innovation, and diversity of thought. The speakers also touched on how AI is changing customer service roles.

15:04 - OpenAI's potential investment from Amazon

The article discussed rumors of Amazon potentially investing $10 billion in OpenAI. The speakers debated the implications of this investment, including its impact on the AI industry and potential financial risks. They also discussed OpenAI's relationships with other tech giants like Microsoft.

19:38 - AWS leadership changes

Peter DeSantis was appointed to lead a new organization focusing on AI models, the Amazon Nova portfolio, and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The speakers discussed the significance of this role and its potential impact on AWS's AI strategy.

26:37 - AWS flat rate pricing plans

AWS announced new flat rate pricing plans for CloudFront and WAF, potentially competing with services like Cloudflare. The speakers discussed the benefits of these plans and how they might affect customer choices and costs.

35:02 - Answers for AWS survey

Peter Sankauscas explained the annual community-run survey he conducts to understand trends in AWS service usage. He discussed new categories added for 2026, such as AI SDLC, and highlighted some interesting findings from the previous year's survey, including the adoption of Graviton and the popularity of DynamoDB.

LInk to this years survey https://answersforaws.com/survey/