Omdia analysts Alastair Edwards and Peter Bryant highlighted key partner-related announcements from the Amazon Web Services re:Invent 2025 conference, pointing to changes in the AWS partner landscape. These included adjustments to resell margins, the introduction of new managed service provider incentives, and multiple updates around agentic AI. Alongside these announcements, Omdia released new research showing that the AWS Partner Ecosystem Multiplier now stands at $7.13 in partner revenue for every dollar spent on AWS.
The updated Partner Ecosystem Multiplier study, conducted three years after the initial analysis, reflects the maturation of the AWS ecosystem in the context of the emerging AI era. The research quantifies revenue opportunities available to AWS partners across the full customer lifecycle. According to Omdia, partners can achieve up to a $7.13 multiplier per dollar of AWS spend, with Expert partners best positioned to unlock the full value by combining advisory, design, implementation, adoption, and ongoing management services.
All four AWS partner segments recorded growth compared with their 2022 opportunities, indicating broad-based ecosystem expansion. The strongest growth was seen in the small and medium business segment. Focused Partners reported a 36 percent increase in PEM opportunities, while Multi-category partners saw a 30 percent increase. These partner categories typically concentrate on greenfield and SMB deployments, underlining the growing importance of these markets within the wider AWS partner ecosystem, Omdia said in a blog post.
At AWS re:Invent 2025, the partner strategy emphasized long-term growth, business value, and simplification, reflecting a shift from project-based to outcome-driven revenue. Omdia’s study shows that 61 percent of Partner Ecosystem Multiplier (PEM) opportunities now occur post-procurement, spread across a three-year cycle: 47 percent in year one (advisory and implementation), 21 percent in year two (build services and AI proofs of concept), and 32 percent in year three (managed services and AI production deployment). This highlights AWS partners’ move toward usage- and outcome-based models that deliver sustained business value.
To support this shift, AWS announced several key programs and incentive changes at re:Invent:
Partner Greenfield Program (PGP): Helps partners expand capabilities to target new-to-AWS “Greenfield” customers. Services partners need Migration, Security, or Generative AI competencies, while ISV partners must join the AWS ISV Accelerate program to access funding, co-sell opportunities, and enablement support.
Global rollout of the Small Business Acceleration Initiative: Builds on a successful pilot to help partners develop, market, and sell SMB solutions beyond simple migrations.
Consolidated base benefits: Combines previous base incentives and technical capability discounts to simplify partner access to rewards.
New Customer Incentives: Streamlines prior programs (Partner Originated discount, Public Sector Discount, Customer Engagement Incentive: Grow) with a stronger focus on consumption-driven growth.
New Partner Growth Incentive: Encourages portfolio expansion and internal AWS practice development, aligning partner growth with customer consumption.
AWS re:Invent 2025 introduced major updates for Managed Service Provider (MSP) partners, effective January 1, 2026, designed to align incentives with cloud consumption and long-term customer value. All AWS-recognized MSP partners will now have access to three new incentive categories:
MSP Incentive for Customer Management: Rewards partners for driving growth in customer AWS consumption, emphasizing long-term engagement and value delivery across multiple years.
MSP Incentive for Strategic Services: Provides additional incentives for projects where partners increase consumption through AWS-designated “strategic services.”
MSP Government Practice Benefit: Supports partners serving complex federal and public sector customers, helping manage the intricacies of government digital transformation.
The focus on MSPs reflects a rapidly growing market, projected to expand 9.8 percent in 2026 to $650.1 billion, with 52 percent of AWS customers actively seeking managed services. By tying incentives to consumption and strategic service delivery, AWS aims to drive sustained partner growth, encourage a services-first approach, and help partners expand their practices while reducing long-term costs for customers.
At AWS re:Invent 2025, agentic AI emerged as a central theme across keynotes and partner announcements, reflecting AWS’s push to enable partners to move from proofs of concept to production and deliver measurable business value. The AWS Partner Network saw several major updates focused on agentic AI and partner specialization:
Expansion of AI Competency Program: Three new agentic AI-specific categories were introduced—Agentic AI Applications, Agentic AI Tools, and Agentic AI Consulting Services. The launch involved 60 partners, including GSIs, SIs, and leading ISVs, marking the largest AWS Specialization launch to date. Participating partners gain enhanced support, resources, and a 50 percent increase in marketing development funds.
AWS Transform Updates: Enhancements continue to help partners modernize legacy systems and applications, particularly mainframes, with a new AWS Transform Composability feature enabling specialized AI agents for industry-specific workloads and compliance requirements. Advanced data analytics capabilities were also introduced to support deeper customer insights.
AWS re:Invent 2025 reinforced that the next era of AI partnerships will be defined not by individual technologies, but by long-term, collaborative digital transformation strategies. Partner success will be tied to usage and outcomes, reflecting a shift from stalled proofs of concept to sustained business value. Building on the $7.13 Partner Ecosystem Multiplier (PEM) opportunity, AWS’s 2025 announcements focused on enabling partners to drive AI adoption, support strategic SMB markets, and broaden the pool of capable partners. The true measure of success will be the long-term integration of AWS partners into their customers’ strategic digital transformations, ensuring sustained impact beyond immediate results.
RAJANI BABURAJAN
