• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 23, 2024

It's been 16 months since I published one of my "Media3.0" columns giving Dentsu the business for its hyperbolic launch announcement of "d.SCRIPTOR," its homegrown AI assistant to help clients get the most out of all things search.

And while I haven't heard much from the holding company about its artificial intelligence (AI) development activity since, I received an alert this morning that it's leaning into Amazon's tools -- specifically, two fledgling Amazon Web Services tools, Bedrock and SageMaker (see explainer videos above and below, respectively) -- for the next generation of AI across Dentsu.

While the holding company is continuing its own bespoke AI development efforts, it said it is embracing third-party and open-source models such as Amazon's to quickly and more easily develop applications.

"Our teams in Japan led the way with trialling out the services and we now offer them globally to our teams," a company spokesman says, estimating that about 5,000 Dentsu staffers working across media, creative and other areas have already onboarded its internal tools, and today's announcement signals a broader, more rapid push into external ones.

In fact, today's Amazon announcements follow deals that Dentsu has already struck to utilize Microsoft's Azure, Google and Salesforce AI products over the past year, and Amazon is now a broader part of its AI toolbox.

The move will enable all of Dentsu's 72,000-person workforce to "innovate faster," the company says.