Sage and AWS: Revolutionizing Agentic AI for SMEs

Exponential Growth in AI Investments

According to forecasts from the International Data Corporation (IDC), global investments in artificial intelligence are expected to see a spectacular increase of 31.9% per year between 2025 and 2029. This trend underscores the growing importance of AI across various sectors, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To meet this rising demand, Sage and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have decided to strengthen their collaboration, focusing on agentic AI, cloud computing, and financial process automation.

A Strategic Partnership for Simplified Adoption

At the Sage Future event in San Francisco, Sage and AWS announced an extension of their partnership aimed at facilitating the integration of agentic AI in SMEs. While the market is ready for large-scale deployment, many obstacles remain for SMEs, particularly in terms of upgrade costs, outdated infrastructures, and the complexity of migrations to the cloud. To overcome these challenges, both companies are offering solutions that automate essential functions such as accounting, cash management, and payroll, using Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and AWS Marketplace.

Steve Hare, CEO of Sage, emphasized that "AI represents a major opportunity for SMEs, but its adoption primarily depends on trust, available tools, and ease of integration."

A Synergy Between Software Expertise and Cloud Infrastructure

The partnership between Sage and AWS is based on combining Sage's expertise in financial software for SMEs with AWS's cloud infrastructure capabilities. Four main areas structure this agreement:

• The development of AI-enhanced cloud financial software.
• The integration of Sage Developer solutions on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore.
• Distribution via AWS Marketplace.
• Accelerating migrations from desktop software to the cloud.

Many SMEs continue to use traditional financial tools, which are often difficult to maintain and poorly suited to new AI technologies. Sage and AWS aim to facilitate the transition to the cloud, thereby reducing the technical barriers to modernizing financial processes.

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore: The Pillar of Automation

At the heart of this initiative is Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, an infrastructure that supports Sage's AI solutions to automate essential financial tasks. Targeted applications include accounts payable, cash management, payroll, and compliance reporting. The primary goal is to enable leaders to quickly access reliable financial information, thereby facilitating decision-making.

Agentic AI, which allows for semi-autonomous actions in specific business processes, could significantly reduce repetitive manual tasks, freeing financial teams for more strategic activities.

Julia White, CMO of AWS, believes that growing companies should no longer have to choose between simplicity and technological power. Through AWS Marketplace, Sage's AI agents can be discovered and deployed in the environments that customers are already using.

AWS Marketplace: An Efficient Distribution Platform

The partnership also emphasizes distribution via AWS Marketplace, providing SMEs with simplified access to a wide range of financial automation tools integrated into their existing systems. For Sage partners and independent publishers, this model offers an opportunity to develop and distribute applications compatible with AgentCore without having to build a commercial or technical infrastructure from scratch.

This approach could foster the emergence of a specialized application ecosystem that meets the specific needs of SMEs, allowing developers to focus on business functionalities rather than integration or deployment challenges.

Ken Kortas, a partner at Wipfli, believes that integrating AI into financial workflows could reassure organizations looking to adopt these technologies in a controlled environment.

Accelerated Modernization of Financial Software

Migrating desktop software to the cloud remains a challenge for many SMEs, often constrained by costs, potential disruptions, and a lack of internal resources. Sage and AWS seek to make this transition faster, more affordable, and less disruptive by leveraging AWS migration tools and Sage's expertise.

This initiative highlights that the battle for AI adoption in business is now centered on ease of integration. SMEs are looking for tools that quickly enhance their daily operations without requiring a complete organizational transformation.

In conclusion, the partnership between Sage and AWS aims to position agentic AI as an accessible and useful technology for medium-sized enterprises, thereby accelerating the democratization of intelligent automation in the financial sector.