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AWS | Partner Connections

Designing AI-assisted partner discovery and connection management in AWS Partner Central for the AWS Marketplace users.

Client

AWS

Role

Lead UX Designer and Researcher

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The Solution

Single source of truth for multi-partner deals and giving the partners back control

Today partners are limited to what they know and who they know. Partner Connections, is a system that enables AWS marketplace partners to discover, connect with globally, and manage other partners to collaborate on the same opportunity. The experience blends AI-driven recommendations, flexible connection controls, and scalable management, while working within real backend and platform constraints.

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The results

  • Centralised partner collaboration that previously lived across emails, spreadsheets, and ad-hoc tools into one governed, visible experience.

  • Faster partner discovery for live opportunities.

  • AI recommended partners based off opportunity and profile data.

  • Clear, controlled collaboration (who can connect, when, and why).

  • A scalable model that works even when full data can’t be front-loaded.

  • Key announcement at AWS's 2024 re:Invent

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Image of the 2024 re:Invent announcing the launch of Partner Connections.

Key Features

Multi-partner opportunity:
Today partners are collaborating on the same opportunity, however it is happening over emails, spreadsheets, word of both or back of napkins.​

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  • One single wholistic view into a shared opportunity.
     

  • Have individual child opportunities for each partner to keep sensitive data protected but essential data can feed up to the parent.
     

  • Surface partners that complement the user’s missing skills.
     

  • Highlight why each partner is recommended (industry, competencies, programs).
     

  • Maintain transparency with clear AI labelling.​

Multi-partner shared opportunity view.

Discovery:

Partner connections removes the limitations of company size, skillsets, region and client access.​

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  • Accesses large scale partner.
     

  • Offer an enhanced client solution by adding additional skillsets through collaboration.
     

  • Access untouched regions.
     

  • Preserve user agency and trust.
     

  • Support exploratory discovery beyond AI suggestions
     

  • Allow filtering by location, competencies, services, and programs.

Connections discovery page across two tabs.

Control:

Trust is important to the users and that was provided through language and control.​

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  • Adding the manual step of review and react to a connection request, allows those larger or popular partner feel reassured.
     

  • Allowing further management control on how you appear on others lists - allow to be hidden or not be shown on certain partners view e.g. a competitor
     

  • Support for backend limitations with explicit messaging: Restricted loading full partner lists and needed to be a manual step to load more. To avoid users feeling they're missing a connection if they were searching, a clear message banner with CTA to resolve is presented.

Connections discovery page across two tabs.

Partner connection manager and prefrences view

The Challenge

How might we help partners:

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  1. Discover the right partners for a specific opportunity or capability gap.
     

  2. Understand who to trust and why through clear profiles.
     

  3. Manage connections at scale, including approvals, restrictions, and bulk actions.
     

  4. Navigate platform limitations without confusion or loss of trust

The How

From silo collaboration to global, tailored connections within a shared trusted view.

The solution was built through a rigorous design and implementation process and in true Amazon style, a lot of doc reads.


Discovery 

Conducted interviews with partners of various size, region and industries, to understand the problem need, how they like to engage with AWS and their solution goals. Carried out internal interviews with partner managers to get a better understanding of language and a further insight into partner engagement.

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Early ideation & Co-Creation 
Took my findings and developed early mocks and made sure to bring in engineers from the beginning to work through any capability limitations.
 

Testing, iteration and approval
User testing with partners, iterating and opportunity to add to the AWS design system. 


QA & Launch
Stayed with the team through implementation to make sure the UX was brought through and interactions matched initial designs.

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