8/17/2026, 12:00:00 AM ~ 8/18/2026, 12:00:00 AM (UTC)

Recent Announcements

Amazon Bedrock expands API support and introduces Cross Region Inferencing for OpenAI models

Amazon Bedrock now supports the OpenAI GPT-5.6 models (Sol, Terra, and Luna) on the bedrock-runtime endpoint, with support for the Responses, Converse, and Chat Completions APIs. It also adds support for cross-Region inference, allowing customers to use Global and Geo cross-Region inference to access higher throughput and lower inference costs.  \n Cross-Region inference automatically routes inference requests across multiple AWS Regions to give you higher throughput, without you needing to manage capacity across multiple Regions. Geo cross region inference routes requests within a predefined geography—including new US Geo (US CRIS) support with this launch—so you can scale while keeping data processed within that geography, while Global cross region inference serve requests from any commercial AWS Region where the model is available, giving you the broadest access to Bedrock capacity and the highest throughput during demand spikes. With Global cross-Region inference you also get lower costs as Global inferencing is priced lower per token for OpenAI models than in-Region and Geo inferencing. This launch also expands API support—you can also use OpenAI GPT models with the Responses API, Chat Completions API, and the Converse API on the bedrock-runtime endpoint. Because these native OpenAI APIs now run on bedrock-runtime, the models work with the same account-level controls you already use for other models on Bedrock: usage appears in Bedrock model invocation logging (deliverable to Amazon S3 or Amazon CloudWatch Logs) and in Amazon CloudWatch metrics covering invocation counts, token counts, latency, throttles, and errors, and it is itemized in AWS Cost Explorer and the AWS Cost and Usage Report so you can attribute spend by model.

Cross-Region inference for OpenAI models is available in all AWS Regions where OpenAI models on Amazon Bedrock are offered. To get started, review the model cards for GPT 5.6 (Sol, Tera and Luna) in the Amazon Bedrock User Guide.

Amazon ECR now supports 25 replication rules per registry

Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) has increased the maximum number of replication rules per registry from 10 to 25.\n Previously, customers with complex multi-region or multi-account architectures were constrained to 10 replication rules per registry, requiring them to consolidate replication configurations to work within that constraint. With this update, customers can define up to 25 replication rules per registry, enabling more precise replication strategies for use cases like distributing images across many regions for low-latency pulls, or replicating to multiple production and staging accounts.

This service limit increase is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon ECR is supported. To learn more, visit the Amazon ECR product page and refer to the Amazon ECR User Guide.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling now supports batch instance termination

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling now supports batch instance termination in a single API call. You can now pass up to 100 instance IDs to the TerminateInstanceInAutoScalingGroup API to terminate them as a batch, reducing the number of API calls needed to scale down your Auto Scaling groups.\n Batch termination is designed for workloads that need to rapidly scale down, such as AI/ML training jobs, container orchestrators, or event-driven architectures that spin up large fleets temporarily. All instances in a batch are validated atomically before termination begins, and existing Auto Scaling behaviors such as lifecycle hooks and load balancer connection draining are preserved for each instance in the batch.

This feature is available in all AWS Regions at no additional cost.

To learn more, visit Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling API Reference Guide.

Amazon MSK now supports configuring custom domain names for MSK Provisioned clusters

You can now easily configure custom domain names on Amazon MSK Provisioned clusters, on either ZooKeeper or KRaft mode for metadata management. This capability helps client applications maintain the same connection endpoints, simplifying cluster migrations, disaster recovery failovers, and scaling operations without reconfiguration.\n Previously, customers configured custom domain names manually on each broker. Additionally, on KRaft-based clusters, customers could not configure custom domain names. With this launch, you can now easily define a custom domain once at the cluster level, and Amazon MSK automatically applies it to every broker in the cluster, eliminating the need to configure each broker individually. The configuration persists through scaling operations and works identically on both ZooKeeper and KRaft-based clusters. This is particularly useful for customers who route traffic through Network Load Balancers, require persistent endpoints across cluster operations, or must adhere to organizational naming conventions for security and compliance.

You can configure custom domain names on all new and existing MSK Provisioned clusters, in all AWS Regions where Amazon MSK Provisioned is available, at no additional cost. To learn more, see the Amazon MSK Developer Guide.

Amazon EC2 R8i and R8i-Flex instances are now available in Canada West (Calgary) region

Starting today, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) R8i and R8i-flex instances are available in the Canada West (Calgary) region. These instances are powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors, available only on AWS, delivering the highest performance and fastest memory bandwidth among comparable Intel processors in the cloud. The R8i and R8i-flex instances offer up to 15% better price-performance, and 2.5x more memory bandwidth compared to previous generation Intel-based instances. They deliver 20% higher performance than R7i instances, with even higher gains for specific workloads. They are up to 30% faster for PostgreSQL databases, up to 60% faster for NGINX web applications, and up to 40% faster for AI deep learning recommendation models compared to R7i.\n R8i-flex, our first memory-optimized Flex instances, are the easiest way to get price performance benefits for a majority of memory-intensive workloads. They offer the most common sizes, from large to 16xlarge, and are a great first choice for applications that don’t fully utilize all compute resources.

R8i instances are a great choice for all memory-intensive workloads, especially for workloads that need the largest instance sizes or continuous high CPU usage. R8i instances offer 13 sizes including 2 bare metal sizes and the new 96xlarge size for the largest applications. R8i instances are SAP-certified and deliver 142,100 aSAPS, the highest among all comparable machines in on-premises and cloud environments, delivering exceptional performance for mission-critical SAP workloads.

To get started, sign in to the AWS Management Console. Customers can purchase these instances via Savings Plans, On-Demand instances, and Spot instances. For more information about the new R8i and R8i-flex instances visit the AWS News blog.

Amazon Connect Customer dashboards now support reporting on routing steps and agent proficiencies

Amazon Connect Customer dashboards now support reporting on routing steps and agent proficiencies enabling supervisors to monitor and optimize how contacts are matched to agents based on agent proficiencies. Managers can filter agents by their assigned proficiencies, group metrics by routing steps, and track new metrics including number of contacts queued in a routing step. For example, a supervisor notices a spike in queued contacts at a routing step requiring highly skilled agents, then relaxes the routing criteria to expand the agent pool and reduce wait times.\n Routing steps and agent proficiencies reporting on analytics dashboards is available in all AWS commercial and AWS GovCloud (US-West) regions where Amazon Connect Customer is offered. To learn more about Amazon Connect Customer analytics dashboards, see the Amazon Connect Customer Administrator Guide. To learn more about Amazon Connect Customer, the AWS cloud-based contact center, please visit the Amazon Connect Customer website.

AWS Network Firewall Now Supports Stateful Rule Hit Counts

AWS Network Firewall now provides rule hit counts for stateful rules, giving network administrators and security engineers visibility into how often each stateful rule in the firewall policy matches network traffic. AWS Network Firewall is a managed network firewall service that provides inspection and visibility into your VPC traffic.\n

With rule hit counts, you can turn firewall rule activity into actionable intelligence. You can accelerate incident response by detecting the rules that triggered, identify policy blind spots such as shadow, redundant, and obsolete rules, and validate policy changes by confirming newly deployed rules are matching the intended traffic. Rule hit counts are enabled by default across both custom and managed rule groups, with metrics refreshing at configurable intervals as low as 5 minutes.

This capability is available at no additional charge as part of AWS Network Firewall. Standard charges apply for storing and querying log data. This feature is available in all AWS Regions where AWS Network Firewall is supported, except the Middle East (UAE) and Middle East (Bahrain) Regions. To learn more, see the AWS Network Firewall product page and AWS Network Firewall documentation.

Amazon Quick Microsoft 365 extensions are now generally available

Amazon Quick announces the general availability of Microsoft 365 extensions for Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook. These extensions enable Quick to perform tasks directly within users’ M365 environments, using AI to handle complex local tasks such as redlining documents, building financial models, creating presentation-ready decks, and managing Outlook inboxes.\n The Excel extension helps with complex spreadsheet analysis, creating pivot tables and charts, and importing and cleaning data. The PowerPoint extension helps you create and refine presentations from Quick data using organization-defined templates. The Word extension generates formatted documents with Word primitives, makes sweeping edits with track changes enabled, and participates as a reviewer in comments. The Outlook extension performs inbox and calendaring tasks such as prioritizing emails, organizing your inbox, scheduling meetings, and drafting replies using your Quick data and entire inbox context.

These extensions transform daily work across teams. Finance teams can build complex models by describing what they need. Sales teams can draft proposals that automatically pull from CRM data. Marketing teams can create branded presentations without manual formatting. Legal teams can streamline contract reviews. Operations teams can manage email workflows and schedule meetings intelligently, and IT teams can automate routine data analysis that previously required manual effort.

Amazon Quick Microsoft 365 extensions are available in US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Europe (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Europe (Frankfurt). To learn more, see Amazon Quick for Microsoft 365: Agentic AI where you work, and download extensions on the Quick download page.

Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports automatic semantic enrichment for VPC domains

Amazon OpenSearch Service now extends automatic semantic enrichment to VPC-enabled domains, allowing customers with private network configurations to leverage AI-powered semantic search without exposing their domains to the public internet.\n   Automatic semantic enrichment transforms traditional keyword-only search into context-aware retrieval by understanding the meaning behind queries. For example, a search for “lightweight laptop for travel” returns results about “ultrabooks” and “portable notebooks under 3 lbs” even when these exact terms aren’t in the query. The feature handles all semantic processing automatically, eliminating the need to self-manage machine learning models and integration overhead. Previously, automatic semantic enrichment was available only on domains that are not VPC-enabled. This capability is now supported within VPCs (Virtual Private Clouds), enabling customers with stricter network security requirements to improve search relevance while maintaining their existing security posture. No changes to existing VPC configurations are required. To learn more about automatic semantic enrichment, see our documentation.

  Automatic semantic enrichment for VPC domains is available across 11 Regions globally: US East (N. Virginia, Ohio), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo), and Europe (Frankfurt, Ireland, Spain, Stockholm). To get started, on your VPC-enabled OpenSearch Service domain running OpenSearch version 2.19 or later, create an index with automatic semantic enrichment fields configured. Note that you may need to update your domain to the latest service software version, see updating service software for more information.

AWS CloudShell now includes a built-in visual file editor

AWS CloudShell now includes a built-in visual file editor that you can launch directly from your shell session using a single ’edit’ command, no setup required. CloudShell provides a browser-based shell environment that uses your existing AWS Management Console credentials, making it a popular choice for developers, DevOps engineers, and cloud administrators managing scripts, infrastructure-as-code, agentic workflows, and AWS Lambda workflows. This new capability extends CloudShell’s utility by bringing a familiar, GUI-based editing experience directly into your console session.\n Previously, editing files in CloudShell required using terminal-based editors such as Vim or Emacs, or downloading files locally and re-uploading them after making changes. This added friction to common workflows. The built-in visual editor eliminates this by supporting syntax highlighting, find-and-replace, multi-line selection, copy-paste, and undo-redo in a single browser session. Whether you are updating a deployment script, modifying an agent steering file, editing an AWS CloudFormation template, or fixing an AWS Lambda function, the editor enables a seamless edit-and-run experience.

This feature is available in all AWS Regions where AWS CloudShell is available.

To learn more about the built-in visual file editor and how to get started, visit the AWS CloudShell documentation.

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