In this episode, we sit down with Carmen Puccio, Senior Manager of Worldwide Tech Partner Solutions Architecture at AWS, to explore how AWS works strategically with partners to create design wins and production-ready solutions. Carmen brings a unique perspective from his 15-year journey at Associated Press building large-scale systems to his 10 years at AWS working across migration, containers, and now partner solutions architecture.

We dive deep into what makes a successful design win - moving beyond sandbox experiments to validated, production-ready solutions that drive real customer value. Carmen explains how AWS's structured partnership approach delivers faster time to market, AWS validation credibility, and established revenue models at scale, contrasting this with partners working in isolation.

The conversation covers AWS's four strategic pillars for 2026: generative AI and agentic AI (including Agent Core's 2 million SDK downloads in five months), AWS Marketplace evolution with multi-product solutions and partner revenue measurement, technical differentiation through co-engineering, and regional expansion for data sovereignty requirements.

Carmen shares concrete examples from partners like Datadog's EKS add-ons, Workday and PGA Tour's Agent Core implementations, and the transformative impact of AWS Transform reducing modernization timelines by up to 4x. We also explore the new marketplace capabilities that allow partners to bundle multiple products and services, plus the game-changing partner revenue measurement tools launched in January 2026.

For partners listening, Carmen provides clear next steps: work closely with your PSA and PDM teams, leverage your partner plan as a go-to-market foundation, and maintain that crucial two-way conversation with AWS about emerging customer needs and market opportunities.

Contact:

E-mail: aws-partner-unplugged-podcast-hosts@amazon.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmenapuccio/