# Amazon Q
**Amazon Q** is a family of generative-AI assistants sold by [Amazon Web Services](https://www.edgepedia.org/amazon-web-services) (AWS) for workplace and software-development use, announced at the AWS re:Invent conference in November 2023 as "a new type of generative artificial intelligence-powered assistant that is specifically for work."[1](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work) The family has three main products: Amazon Q Business, an enterprise assistant that answers questions and completes tasks from a company's own data; [Amazon Q Developer](https://www.edgepedia.org/amazon-q-developer), a coding assistant descended from CodeWhisperer; and Amazon Q in QuickSight, a natural-language layer on AWS's business-intelligence service.[2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qbusiness-ug/what-is.html) • [3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/) Amazon described Q as a work assistant tailored to a customer's business, with interactions personalized according to organizational identities, roles, and permissions.[1](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Launch | Announced in preview at AWS re:Invent, November 2023; general availability April 2024[1](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work) • [4](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-data) |
| Variants | Q Business (enterprise chat and task automation), Q Developer (coding assistant, ex-CodeWhisperer), Q in QuickSight (BI Q&A)[2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qbusiness-ug/what-is.html) • [3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/) • [5](https://aws.amazon.com/q/pricing/) |
| Pricing | Q Business $3 (Lite) or $20 (Pro) per user/month; Q Developer Pro $19 per user/month; QuickSight Q&A $24 (Authors) to $3 (Readers)[5](https://aws.amazon.com/q/pricing/) • [3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/) |
| Under the hood | Foundation models on Amazon Bedrock, including Amazon Titan plus Anthropic and Meta models, with retrieval-augmented generation over a managed enterprise index[6](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/amazon-unleashes-q-an-ai-assistant-for-the-workplace/) • [7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html) |
| Vendor-reported accuracy | Q Business RAG true-positive rates: 78% (KILT-Natural Questions), 88% (KILT-TriviaQA), 77% (multi-hop RAG), 91% claim verification (RAGChecker-Finance)[7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html) |
| Commercial result | Q Developer reached a projected $16.3 million ARR by late April 2025, against $500 million for Cursor and $82 million for Windsurf[8](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-q-lags-revenue-race-competitors-ai-coding-2025-9) |
| Sunset | Q Developer IDE plugins and paid subscriptions reach end of support April 30, 2027, with customers directed to Kiro[9](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/amazon-q-developer-end-of-support-announcement/) |
## History and naming
AWS announced Amazon Q in November 2023, available in preview, with Amazon Q in Connect already generally available and Amazon Q in AWS Supply Chain announced as coming soon.[1](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work) The product reached general availability in April 2024.[4](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-data)
On April 30, 2024, Amazon rebranded its CodeWhisperer coding assistant as **Amazon Q Developer**, placing it in the Q family alongside the newly announced Q Business.[3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/) AWS's Doug Seven acknowledged that CodeWhisperer had struggled to match the momentum of its chief rival [GitHub Copilot](https://www.edgepedia.org/github-copilot), which at that point had over 1.8 million paying individual users and tens of thousands of corporate customers.[3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/)
## How it works
Amazon Q Business is a fully managed service that runs on foundation models hosted on [Amazon Bedrock](https://www.edgepedia.org/amazon-bedrock), so customers do not provision or manage any models or infrastructure.[7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html) At launch, Q was not built on a single large language model: it uses Bedrock to integrate multiple AI systems, including Amazon's Titan and models from [Anthropic](https://www.edgepedia.org/anthropic) and Meta.[6](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/amazon-unleashes-q-an-ai-assistant-for-the-workplace/)
The core mechanism is retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Q Business retrieves documents from a managed index of the customer's enterprise data, then runs a pipeline that filters the prompt for safety, augments it with the retrieved documents, generates a completion, filters the completion, and returns it with citations to the retrieved documents.[7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html) The service offers retrieval, creative, and plug-in conversation modes.[7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html)
**Data connections.** Q Business integrates with Amazon Kendra and supported data sources such as [Amazon S3](https://www.edgepedia.org/amazon-s3), Microsoft SharePoint, and [Salesforce](https://www.edgepedia.org/salesforce), and can build task-automation applications that perform routine actions like submitting time-off requests.[2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qbusiness-ug/what-is.html)
## Variants and capabilities
**Q Business** answers questions, provides summaries, generates content, and completes tasks based on enterprise data, returning permissions-aware responses with citations for use cases such as IT, HR, and benefits help desks.[2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qbusiness-ug/what-is.html)
**Q Developer** provides code suggestions and, through its Agents capability, can autonomously implement features, document code, and refactor code; it can also be fine-tuned on a customer's internal codebases.[3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/) At re:Invent in December 2024 AWS expanded it across the software development life cycle: automatic unit-test generation, writing and maintaining documentation, a first code review at check-in, and an operations agent that pulls CloudWatch data and investigates alarms to propose root-cause hypotheses. The code transformation agent, originally aimed at modernizing older Java applications, was extended to help update older .NET applications from Windows to Linux.[10](https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/03/aws-wants-amazon-q-to-become-your-buddy-for-the-entire-software-development-lifecycle/)
**Q in QuickSight** adds Q&A over business-intelligence data; Authors at $24 per user/month can connect to data, create dashboards and reports, and share content, with Reader tiers at $3 and Pro variants at $50 and $20.[5](https://aws.amazon.com/q/pricing/)
## By the numbers
Q Business charges for both user subscriptions and index capacity: $3 per user/month for Lite (basic question answering with permission-aware responses) and $20 for Pro (the full capability suite).[5](https://aws.amazon.com/q/pricing/) Q Developer Pro costs $19 per user/month and adds higher usage limits, user and policy management, single sign-on, and IP indemnity; the free tier's agentic limits are reported differently by different sources, with [TechCrunch](https://www.edgepedia.org/techcrunch) describing five Agents tasks and 25 AWS-resource queries per month at launch and a later review site describing 50 agentic requests per month.[3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/) • [11](https://litmustools.com/review/amazon-q-developer/) One hands-on test paid around $50 for a single week of building a chatbot with Q, on top of subscriptions, because index and infrastructure costs vary with use.[12](https://iamondemand.com/blog/genai-showdown-amazon-q-vs-microsoft-copilot/)
AWS reports veracity test results for Q Business RAG: a 78% true-positive rate on KILT-[Natural Questions](https://www.edgepedia.org/natural-questions), 88% on KILT-TriviaQA, 77% on a multi-hop RAG dataset, and 86% on RAGChecker-Finance, with 91% TPR for claim verification on RAGChecker-Finance. Robustness scores, measuring variation between base and perturbed prompts where 0.0 means no variation, were 0.11 on KILT-Natural Questions, 0.08 on KILT-TriviaQA, and 0.20 on multi-hop RAG. These are vendor-reported figures from AWS's own service documentation.[7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html) Customer-reported code acceptance rates at general availability were 37% at [BT Group](https://www.edgepedia.org/bt-group) and 50% at [National Australia Bank](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-australia-bank), which AWS described as the industry's highest reported acceptance rates for multi-line code suggestions.[4](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-data)
Commercially, Q Developer lagged. An internal Amazon document obtained by [Business Insider](https://www.edgepedia.org/business-insider) put its projected annual recurring revenue at $16.3 million as of late April 2025, based on roughly $317,000 in weekly revenue, about a year after launch. By comparison, Anysphere's Cursor crossed $500 million in ARR in June 2025 after reaching $100 million earlier that year, and Windsurf reported $82 million in ARR in July 2025.[8](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-q-lags-revenue-race-competitors-ai-coding-2025-9)
## How it compares with Copilot, Gemini, and Alexa
At launch, Amazon Q was priced at $20 per user per month, below Microsoft's and Google's enterprise AI solutions at $30 per user per month, and was positioned against Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Duet AI, and ChatGPT Enterprise.[6](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/amazon-unleashes-q-an-ai-assistant-for-the-workplace/) Against GitHub Copilot's $10/$19/$39 pricing ladder, Q Developer's $19 Pro tier bundles security scanning, code transformation, and IP indemnity, which reviewers describe as suited to AWS-standardized teams.[11](https://litmustools.com/review/amazon-q-developer/)
## Reception and enterprise use
Named customers at general availability included Blackberry, BT Group, and Toyota, using Q to increase developer productivity.[4](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-data) Reporting on the product's first year was mixed. In September 2024, leaked Slack messages and an internal memo showed Amazon employees worried that Q's shortcomings were causing customers to switch to Microsoft's Copilot; a common customer complaint was Q's inability to process images embedded in PDF files, and an AWS employee said Q lacked multi-modal capabilities, the ability to handle both text and image files.[13](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-q-ai-early-challenges-aws-chatbot-2024-9) The revenue shortfall against Cursor and Windsurf prompted Amazon to reassess its broader branding plans.[8](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-q-lags-revenue-race-competitors-ai-coding-2025-9) Broader context is also cautionary: a study cited by [The Register](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-register) found AI agents fail to complete simple office tasks at least 70% of the time, and around two-thirds of companies have rolled out AI developer tools, most reporting little productivity boost.[14](https://www.theregister.com/special-features/2025/12/02/aws-announces-trio-of-autonomous-ai-agents-for-developers/2297766)
## Security, privacy, and governance
Amazon stated at launch that Q personalizes interactions based on an organization's existing identities, roles, and permissions, and that it never uses business customers' content to train its underlying models.[1](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work) Because Q Business is a managed service, it does not share prompts and completions between customers.[7](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html) Independent reviewers describe the integration with Amazon IAM as Q's main selling point, letting AWS customers manage Q's permissions with tools they already use; Q Business chatbots also expose an API for embedding in other applications.[12](https://iamondemand.com/blog/genai-showdown-amazon-q-vs-microsoft-copilot/) On Q Developer Pro, code is not retained or used to train models and the service rides AWS's SOC 2 compliance posture, with IP indemnification; the free tier may use content for service improvement unless the user opts out, and there is no self-hosted or on-premises option.[11](https://litmustools.com/review/amazon-q-developer/)
The successor Kiro extends this governance model to agents: the Kiro agent does not merge changes without developer oversight, logs all its work for human review, and runs each task in a sandbox with user-set permissions and three network-access levels (Integration only, Common dependencies, Open internet), with access restrictable via IAM actions.[14](https://www.theregister.com/special-features/2025/12/02/aws-announces-trio-of-autonomous-ai-agents-for-developers/2297766)
## Recent developments
The timeline runs from the November 2023 preview[1](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work) through April 2024 general availability[4](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-data) and the same-month CodeWhisperer rebrand[3](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/), to the December 2024 re:Invent expansion of Q Developer across the development life cycle.[10](https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/03/aws-wants-amazon-q-to-become-your-buddy-for-the-entire-software-development-lifecycle/)
**The Kiro transition.** In December 2025 AWS confirmed that Kiro, an agentic development environment built for spec-driven development, had become its standard AI development environment across the company. AWS CEO Garman cited an Amazon project in which Kiro trimmed a 30-developer project slated to take 18 months down to 76 days with six developers.[14](https://www.theregister.com/special-features/2025/12/02/aws-announces-trio-of-autonomous-ai-agents-for-developers/2297766) AWS then announced that Q Developer IDE plugins and paid subscriptions will reach end of support on April 30, 2027, giving customers 12 months to transition to Kiro; Q Developer in the AWS Management Console and first-party AWS experiences, including the Slack and [Microsoft Teams](https://www.edgepedia.org/microsoft-teams) chat apps, are not affected.[9](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/amazon-q-developer-end-of-support-announcement/) Kiro meters usage in credits rather than requests: $20 for 1,000 credits, $40 Pro+ for 2,000, $100 Pro Max for 5,000, and $200 Power for 10,000, with overage at $0.04 per credit.[11](https://litmustools.com/review/amazon-q-developer/)
**2026.** On August 4, 2026, AWS launched Kiro Crew, an autonomous workspace that keeps AI coding agents running continuously, distinguished from Kiro's "autonomous mode" by scope, and open-sourced it; internal adoption reached 39,000 builders and 500 contributors in six months without a mandate.[15](https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/04/aws-launches-kiro-crew-autonomous-agentic-orchestrator-24-7-code-development/) • [16](https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/08/kiro-crew-coding-agents/) Amazon also unveiled agents that check and test new code before it ships and clean up old code while leaving final merge or deploy decisions to humans, and released Kiro Mobile, an iPhone app in preview on iOS 26 and later for Kiro Pro, Pro+, Pro Max, and Power subscribers, with no general-availability date set.[17](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-unveils-new-ai-agents-trying-to-thread-the-needle-between-autonomy-and-human-control/) • [18](https://thenewstack.io/aws-kiro-mobile-ios-agentic-coding/)
## References
1. [AWS Announces Amazon Q to Reimagine the Future of Work (November 2023), Amazon press release](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q-to-reimagine-the-future-of-work)
2. [What is Amazon Q Business?, AWS documentation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qbusiness-ug/what-is.html)
3. [Amazon CodeWhisperer is now called Q Developer and is expanding its functions, TechCrunch (April 30, 2024)](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/30/amazon-codewhisperer-is-now-called-q-developer-and-is-expanding-its-functions/)
4. [AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Q (April 2024), Amazon press release](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-data)
5. [AI Assistant - Amazon Q Pricing, AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/q/pricing/)
6. [Amazon unleashes Q, an AI assistant for the workplace, Ars Technica (November 2023)](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/amazon-unleashes-q-an-ai-assistant-for-the-workplace/)
7. [AI Service Card: Amazon Q Business for RAG applications, AWS documentation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ai/responsible-ai/q-business-for-rag-apps/overview.html)
8. [Amazon's AI Coding Assistant Q Lags Rivals in Revenue: Internal Data, Business Insider (September 2025)](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-q-lags-revenue-race-competitors-ai-coding-2025-9)
9. [Amazon Q Developer end-of-support announcement, AWS DevOps Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/amazon-q-developer-end-of-support-announcement/)
10. [AWS wants Amazon Q to become your buddy for the entire software development life cycle, TechCrunch (December 2024)](https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/03/aws-wants-amazon-q-to-become-your-buddy-for-the-entire-software-development-lifecycle/)
11. [Amazon Q Developer Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict, Litmus Tools](https://litmustools.com/review/amazon-q-developer/)
12. [GenAI Showdown: Amazon Q vs. Microsoft Copilot, IAmONDEMAND](https://iamondemand.com/blog/genai-showdown-amazon-q-vs-microsoft-copilot/)
13. [Leaked Messages Show Early Challenges for Amazon's Big AI Product Q, Business Insider (September 2024)](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-q-ai-early-challenges-aws-chatbot-2024-9)
14. [AWS announces trio of autonomous AI agents for developers, The Register (December 2025)](https://www.theregister.com/special-features/2025/12/02/aws-announces-trio-of-autonomous-ai-agents-for-developers/2297766)
15. [AWS launches Kiro Crew, an autonomous agentic orchestrator for 24/7 code development, SiliconANGLE (August 2026)](https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/04/aws-launches-kiro-crew-autonomous-agentic-orchestrator-24-7-code-development/)
16. [AWS Open Sources Kiro Crew for Asynchronous Coding Agents, InfoQ (August 2026)](https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/08/kiro-crew-coding-agents/)
17. [Amazon unveils new AI agents, trying to thread the needle between autonomy and human control, GeekWire (2026)](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-unveils-new-ai-agents-trying-to-thread-the-needle-between-autonomy-and-human-control/)
18. [Kiro goes mobile: AWS brings agentic coding supervision to the iPhone, The New Stack](https://thenewstack.io/aws-kiro-mobile-ios-agentic-coding/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Technology and the built world › Computing and digital systems › Modern AI: foundation models, generative AI, and the AI industry › AI companies, people, and products › AI products and assistants › AI in devices and work software*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license