Screaming in the Cloud

Corey Quinn sits down with Pasquale DeMaio, VP of Amazon Connect Customer , to talk about how Agentic AI is reshaping customer service, and why replacing humans isn’t necessarily the goal. They dig into the evolution of Amazon Connect Customer from a cloud-based contact center into an AI-powered customer experience platform, where agentic AI, real-time customer context, voice technology, and deterministic workflows work together to actually solve problems.

They also explore where humans still matter most, why poorly chosen metrics can create terrible customer experiences, the importance of guardrails as AI becomes more autonomous, and what happens when AI agents start talking to other AI agents. The future of customer service may be increasingly automated, but the real opportunity is making every interaction feel smarter, faster, and more human.

Show Highlights: 
(00:16) Origin Story of Connect
(01:49) From Call Center to Cloud
(04:48) AI First Engagement Vision
(07:04) Agentic Canvas and Workflows
(09:20) When AI vs Humans Matter
(11:20) Guardrails and Fraud Risks
(14:11) Multimodal Live Sync Flights
(16:35) New Voices and Localization
(18:18) Voice Selection and Custom Voices
(20:49) Enterprise Scale and Trust
(23:45) A2A and Open Agent Ecosystem
(25:21) Making Connect Easier to Use
(27:53) Customer Profiles and Personalize
(29:20) Wrap Up and Where to Learn More

What happens when open source, AI, and decades of database technology collide?

Corey Quinn sits down with German Eichberger, Principal AI Engineering Manager at Microsoft, to dig into DocumentDB, why it’s built on PostgreSQL, and the realities of MongoDB compatibility. They explore how Kubernetes and databases have evolved to better support stateful workloads, why MCP servers could give AI agents safer database access, and how AI may dramatically increase the number of databases organizations need to manage.

Show Highlights: 
(0:00) Databases in Volatile Environments
(00:12) Welcome and Introductions
(01:20) AI Titles and Pay Signals
(02:53) Why DocumentDB Exists
(05:04) Mongo API on Postgres
(07:15) No Forking Postgres
(08:09) Compatibility and Standards
(12:12) Governance and Roadmap
(15:15) Kubernetes and MCP Agents

Sponsored by:
duckbillhq.com

AWS Morning Brief for the week of September 14th with Corey Quinn. 

Links:
Amazon API Gateway now supports 1 MB execution logs with configurable delivery destinations
Amazon S3 Object Lock now supports variable retention with event holds
Lambda's slow-motion reinvention of EC2
Amazon EC2 now supports specifying compatible instance types on AMIs
Announcing second-generation single-rack AWS Outposts
How AWS thinks about FinOps Automation and Trust
Introducing Amazon EBS Volume Clones across AWS accounts
How to migrate from Amazon CloudSearch to Amazon OpenSearch Serverless
Introducing Pizza Bot, an open source inbox for AI agents that work in the background
Three consecutive CVEs, all AWS-authored code

AWS VP of Global Networking Matt Rehder joins Corey Quinn to pull back the curtain on the massive network infrastructure behind AWS. They explore resiliency at scale, AWS’s move toward flatter networks, the advantages of building custom hardware, and why AI is making networking exciting again.
Show Highlights: 
(01:08) Meet AWS Networking Lead
(02:01) Why AWS Avoids Global Outages
(05:23) RNG Flat Network Explained
(10:08) Overbuild Capacity And Custom Hardware
(17:37) VPC Virtual Network Origins
(19:50) Why TCP Still Wins
(20:38) SRD Inside AWS
(21:54) Opt In SRD Transport
(25:31) Networks As Utilities 
(27:24) Learning And Growing Engineers
(29:22) Training Talent In House
(31:27) AI Rekindles Networking
(34:26) Where To Learn Networking

On this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, Corey Quinn sits down with Adam Larsen, Principal Developer at Aurora Educational Technologies, to explore what technology and AI should actually look like in K-12 education. They discuss using tech to empower teachers rather than replace them, the risks of outsourcing critical thinking to AI, student data privacy, and what happens when schools become dependent on tools that may not be affordable forever. Adam also shares how AWS became his go-to platform for solving complex education data problems, and why sometimes the best technology is simply the one that reliably gets the job done.

Show Highlights: 

00:00 Critical Thinking Warning
00:15 Meet the Guest
01:07 From Psych to Edtech
02:07 Teachers and Tool Whiplash
07:29 AI as a Teaching Aid
10:07 Process Over Shortcuts
14:29 Tech Misconceptions in Schools
16:38 Privacy and Picking Vendors
21:50 AI Costs and Ecosystem Bets
26:33 Building on AWS and Wrap Up

Sponsored by:
duckbillhq.com