Section 1 - Risk identification and evaluation
Amazon is both a developer and deployer of AI. AWS offers AI services made available through our cloud offerings. While Amazon builds and uses AI technology across many of its businesses, this report focuses on the Amazon Nova models. The Amazon Nova family of models deliver frontier intelligence and industry leading price performance, available in Amazon Bedrock. Where relevant, we include examples of how Amazon’s businesses use mechanisms to responsibly develop and deploy AI technology to solve customer needs and advance sustainability goals.
Amazon defines and classifies AI risks in Amazon Nova models through our Frontier Model Safety Framework (FMSF), which establishes Critical Capability Thresholds across key risk categories. We evaluate these models against these thresholds using maximal capability assessments and implement appropriate safeguards before deploying any model that reaches these thresholds.
Please see the “Critical Capability Thresholds” section in our Frontier Model Safety Framework.
Our approach includes technical safeguards, policy controls, and continuous evaluation processes designed to identify and address frontier model vulnerabilities while promoting safe and responsible AI development. Amazon’s evaluation methodology combines automated benchmarking, expert red-teaming, and human-centric risk assessments to identify and evaluate risks throughout a frontier model’s lifecycle. These model evaluations are conducted on an ongoing basis, including during training and prior to deployment of new frontier models. Models will also be re-evaluated prior to major updates that could materially enhance model capabilities.
Please see the “Evaluating Frontier Models for Critical Capabilities” section in our Frontier Model Safety Framework.
Amazon conducts extensive testing to evaluate frontier model fitness across the entire lifecycle of the model. As appropriate, we use a range of model evaluation approaches, including automated benchmarks, expert red teaming, and uplift studies.
We use multiple datasets and multiple human workforces to evaluate the performance of the Amazon Nova models. Our development testing involves automated benchmarking against publicly available datasets, automated benchmarking against proprietary datasets, benchmarking against proxies for anticipated customer use cases, human evaluation of completions against proprietary datasets, automated red teaming, manual red teaming, and more. Our development process examines Amazon Nova model performance using all these tests, takes steps to improve the model and/or the suite of evaluation datasets, and then iterates. In this service card, we provide an overview of our methodology.
Amazon uses manual, automated and third parties to conduct red teaming against frontier models in areas such as safety, security, privacy, fairness, and veracity. We also work with specialized firms and academics to red-team frontier models for specialized areas such as Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) capabilities.
Please see the “Evaluating Frontier Models for Critical Capabilities” section in our Frontier Model Safety Framework and Evaluating the critical risks of Amazon’s Nova Premier under the Frontier Model Safety Framework.
Yes. For Quantitative and Qualitative Risk Evaluations. Please see our responses to questions 1(a) through 1(c).
Reporting Mechanisms employed:
o Amazon’s automated threat intelligence and defense systems detect and mitigate millions of threats each day. These systems are backed by human experts for threat intelligence, security operations, and security response. Threat sharing with other providers and government agencies provides collective defense and response.
o The Amazon Cyber Threat Intelligence team continually monitors and tracks dozens of advance threat actor groups, observing their tactics, techniques, and procedures, and when appropriate, taking part in coordinated take-downs of their infrastructure. In addition, the AWS Trust & Safety and Fraud teams detect abusive and fraudulent behavior on the AWS cloud using automated and human monitoring, as well as external reporting mechanisms, and block or evict bad actors as needed.
o Amazon is continuing to invest in external security research, including bug bounty programs, academic research investments, and coordinated vulnerability disclosure programs that encourage and reward security experts to partner with us in research and development.
Please see “Appendix A: Amazon’s Foundational Security Practices” in our Frontier Model Safety Framework.
Yes. Please see our responses to questions 1(a) through 1(e). In general, Amazon leverages external independent expertise where appropriate including proactive engagement across academic, industry, and government partnerships like the following:
- Collaboration on threat modeling and updated Critical Capability Thresholds: Amazon is committed to partnering with governments, domain experts, and industry peers to continuously improve our awareness of the threat environment and maintain Critical Capability Thresholds and evaluation processes that account for evolving and emerging threats.
- Information sharing and best practices development: Engagement in fora that bring together companies developing frontier models (e.g. Frontier Model Forum (FMF) and Partnership on AI) and organized by government agencies (e.g. National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST)). These fora serve as an opportunity to share findings and to adopt recommendations from other leading companies.
- Fostering academic research for development of cutting-edge alignment techniques: Through initiatives such as the Amazon Scholars, Amazon Research Awards and Amazon Research centers (e.g. USC + Amazon Center on Secure & Trusted Machine Learning, Amazon/ MIT Science Hub), we work with leading academic partners conducting research on frontier AI risks and novel risk mitigation approaches. Additionally, we advance our own research and publish findings in safety conferences, while borrowing learnings presented by other academic institutions at similar venues.
- Investments in advanced AI safety R&D: At Amazon, we accelerate our work in AI safety through initiatives such as our Amazon AGI SF Lab and the Trusted AI Challenge. These channels enable us to leverage the work of subject matter experts and discover promising approaches towards aligning our frontier models.
- Learning from our red teaming network: We continue to build our strong network of internal and external red teamers including red teamers with deep subject matter expertise in risks related to critical capabilities. These experts are critical in surfacing early insights into emerging critical capabilities and help us identify and implement appropriate mitigations.
Through these partnerships and reporting mechanisms, we continuously enhance our ability to identify, assess, and address risks while contributing to the broader development of AI safety practices.
Please see our Frontier Model Safety Framework for more information.
Yes. Please see our responses to questions 1(e) and 1(f).
Amazon actively contributes to the development of international technical standards through active engagement in ISO/IEC’s AI standards body (ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 42) and AI-related projects in ISO/IEC’s cybersecurity and privacy standards body (ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 27). We also engage actively with other standards organizations like CEN/CENELEC, Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). We recognize that effective standards establish common expectations about AI and responsible AI implementation. Standard implementations support our customers and both our upstream and downstream suppliers. We support AI safety and risk assessment and mitigation by engaging with/in organizations like NIST including the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), Thorn, and FMF.
Amazon actively engages with a diverse network of stakeholders, including academic institutions, industry partners, and government agencies. Amazon participates in cross-industry forums, supports academic research initiatives, and works with independent evaluators.
Please see our responses to questions 1(e) through 1(g).
No answer provided


























