
Show Notes
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
Sponsored by: duckbillhq.com
More from Screaming in the Cloud
What happens when open source, AI, and decades of database technology collide?
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.
AI-generated code is no longer just producing low-quality pull requests. According to AWS Principal Engineer and Valkey core maintainer Madelyn Olson, the quality of AI-assisted contributions has improved dramatically in just the last few months. In this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, Corey Quinn and Madelyn discuss how AI is changing open source development, the growing burden on maintainers, and how projects like Valkey are using AI to find bugs, improve security, and harden production systems. They also explore Valkey's continued growth, the future of software development, and why experience, operational knowledge, and community still matter in an age where code is becoming cheaper to create. *Since this episode was recorded without video, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to get creative with AI!
What happens when two cloud economists leave AWS behind and spend six days hiking 60 miles on the Appalachian Trail? Corey Quinn sits down with Caleb Hurd to share stories from the trail, including exploding sleeping pads, heroic shuttle drivers, lost phones, and the unique community that makes long-distance hiking special. Along the way, they draw surprising parallels between backpacking and cloud economics, discussing everything from serverless architecture and cloud cost optimization to the hidden challenges of on-prem infrastructure. It's a conversation about technology, adventure, perspective, and why sometimes the best way to solve complex problems is to step away from them entirely. Show highlights: (00:00) Why Hiking Hooks You (00:15) Meet Caleb on the Trail (01:31) Trail Miles and Ultralight Parallels (05:24) The Sleeping Pad Blowout (07:46) Shepherd Saves the Day (09:43) Trail Community and Cloud Community (11:07) Post Trail Perspective and Inside Jokes (15:35) Back to Work On Prem vs Cloud Pain (25:47) Server-less Spend and Lambda Sprawl (32:29) Wrap Up Where to Find Caleb