So it's not... On AWS... ?
This statement sounds.... Backwards?
I get they have another option that is in AWS, but this continues the cryptic naming problem AWS already is overloaded with
More charitably, this lets an org heavy on AWS use their existing IAM / SSO / Finops processes to manage Claude stuff, this is genuinely helpful when otherwise you have to go thru several teams and build out whole new rails to adopt.
This is exactly it. For any reasonably sized org, setting up new contracts with new vendors involves a lot of procurement, lawyers, negotiations, etc.
If a team can just click a button in AWS, there’s no issue.
This is a product / solution that solves an organizational problem, not a technical one.
I wouldn’t even call it a hack as much as extremely common a strategy.
The Bedrock models, at least, have additional click through EULAs for Anthropic models. You’re going to need to review and agree to those as well.
Claude is going to be marketplace spend and that’s usually capped towards your PPA at 25%.
Every year "don't agree to things on behalf of the company"
Every day "click here to agree that ..."
Legally it didn't matter whether the signer had authority because the way the signer's company behaved during the signing process implied that the signer had authority.
E.g. If the CTO at a company tells a vendor to "send the contract over to my product manager" then the CTO created the impression with the counterparty that the product manager has authority, and the company will be hound to the contract based on that fact regardless of whether the product manager actually has authority or not.
I'm sure it's more nuanced than this, but my understanding is actual authority is less relevant than implied authority. E.g. if you have your board of directors take away the CEO's authority to sign a contract, it doesn't automatically invalidate everything the CEO signs, since a counterparty can reasonably assume that the CEO has authority just based on their job title.
Once a vendor has entered into a contract, that could change - e.g. "any change orders must be approved by $EMPLOYEE_SET".
It's absolutely wild that every W-2 employee can expose their employer to essentially unlimited liability, but AFAIK, that's the truth.
“I don’t have the budget for this but we have AWS credits” is something teams beg for all the time.
When people beg to give you money, you accept it. Why? It’s not some conspiracy theory. You accept the money because it’s money.
Through AWS, assuming the underlying data governance is reasonable, this will be a much easier pill to swallow.
In my org, I have to file a form for reimbursement if I bought a pencil for $0.25 but in AWS? spend varies by +/- $5k per month and nobody even questions it. This will definitely make it trivially easy for me to build on Anthropic's services without even telling anybody vs the hoops I would have to jump to get it paid for another way.
Can confirm that this is the one and only reason that we use Claude through AWS
As other people have pointed out, it makes contract signing much easier.
THe other side effect is that it bumps up your spend, possibly to the point where you are eligible for "private pricing" ie global discount.
So its a win-win for most people.
Seems like there are two different options.