Ted S. Warren/AP
- Amazon recently launched Cedric, an internal AI chatbot, to boost employee productivity.
- Cedric is designed for secure use, addressing privacy concerns with external AI tools.
- Amazon has repeatedly warned employees not to use third-party AI chatbots, including ChatGPT.
Amazon warns employees not to use third-party AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. Instead, staff are now encouraged to use a new internal tool called Cedric, Business Insider has learned.
Cedric is a "general purpose AI chatbot" that is "safer than ChatGPT," an internal document obtained by BI said. Amazon employees can "use it to ask questions, summarize documents, and brainstorm new ideas."
Cedric's goal is to help Amazon employees increase their productivity and job satisfaction as external AI tools are not available for security reasons, the document said.
"It's been over a year since ChatGPT Enterprise, and Co-pilot Enterprise were released yet Amazonians are left behind the curve due to limited options that are safe-for-business use," the document said. "Without an AI Assistant, Amazonians will have lower job satisfaction than other companies who do adopt these tools. In addition, companies that leverage AI will have a higher decision velocity and be more productive — hence be able to serve customers faster and better than Amazon."
The launch of Cedric underscores the challenges companies face as they seek to use AI tools safely and securely. While AI chatbots can potentially help workers, the risk of employees sharing confidential business information, intentionally or not, is high. Questions remain about how generative AI companies handle confidential information that goes in and out of their systems and whether this data is used for model training.
A thorny issue
For Amazon, this is a particularly thorny issue. Its archrival Microsoft has launched AI assistant products, and it's a close partner and investor in OpenAI, the startup company behind ChatGPT. Shortly after ChatGPT's release in late 2022, Amazon started warning employees not to share confidential information with the chatbot. Earlier this year, Amazon formalized internal guidelines that ban external AI tools, including ChatGPT, for business purposes.
In recent years, a number of large companies, including Apple, Samsung, and JP Morgan Chase, have restricted their employees from using ChatGPT because of privacy concerns. That's created a hidden wave of employees secretly using such AI tools at work, called "CheatGPT," because the tech can help them do their jobs faster.
In an email to BI, an Amazon spokesperson said the company supports using generative AI technology at work, including Cedric, and internal guidance helps employees "use these services while properly managing confidential information."
"Amazon employees use internal generative AI tools every day to innovate on behalf of our customers. We have safeguards in place for employee use of these technologies, which is focused on protecting confidential information, including guidance on accessing third-party generative AI services," the spokesperson added.
'Reading and writing companion'
Internally, Amazon is calling Cedric "your secure doc reading and writing companion," according to the internal document. It suggests employees use it to create Amazon's famous six-page memos "in seconds" and turn meeting notes into email-ready formats "safely and securely."
The internal document added that Cedric was trained on conversation text, so employees are encouraged to use plain English as if they were speaking conversationally. The new tool can also help generate new ideas and solve problems. One of the suggested use cases showed that employees can upload Word documents, PDF files, and Excel spreadsheets and ask what a VP would say about the content.
All Amazon employees now have access to Cedric. Some employees told BI that Amazon started promoting Cedric more widely across the company a few weeks ago, after an early pilot period.
For Cedric, Amazon didn't use its in-house AI model Titan. Instead, Amazon used its Bedrock AI development platform and Anthropic's Claude large language model, according to the document. (Amazon has invested heavily in Anthropic).
Approved for 'highly confidential data'
Cedric is one of the many AI tools Amazon recently launched or is building internally. Amazon Q is its flagship AI tool targeting businesses and developers. Separately, Amazon is working on another AI chatbot code-named Metis and an upgraded AI-powered Alexa app, BI previously reported.
Unlike those apps, Cedric is for internal use only and its output "cannot be used outside of Amazon," the internal document warned.
Security is a key point for Cedric. Software developers and Amazon Web Services employees are approved to use Cedric with "highly confidential data," the document said. Cedric doesn't share any inputs back into the underlying foundation model for training purposes or send it to any third-party developer. Chat history is saved in an encrypted database.
For code generation, however, employees should use Amazon Q instead of Cedric, the document advised.
Cedric should not be used for any "consequential" decision that can have a "legal or similarly significant effect on an individual," the document added.
Still, Amazon appears confident in Cedric's ability and encourages employees to use it ahead of meetings with the company's most senior executives.
"How would a CEO answer?" the internal document suggested asking the AI chatbot.
Do you work at Amazon? Got a tip?
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