Amazon Connect Decisions FAQs

Amazon Connect Decisions is an adaptive intelligence solution for supply chain planning and intelligence. AI teammates equipped with specialized supply chain tools continuously adapt to your goals, systems, and behaviors, learning from your team's actions to make every plan and decision better. AI agents harmonize demand into consensus forecasts, generate constraint-aware supply plans, and monitor operations to prevent problems, resolve issues, and identify root causes. Lead a team of AI agents that handle coordination, analysis, and execution, freeing you to focus on strategic decisions.

Supply chain planning shouldn't feel like constant crisis management. Amazon Connect Decisions helps your team shift from firefighting to proactive planning and decisioning. Here's what makes Amazon Connect Decisions different: 

• Proven depth of supply chain expertise: AI teammates are backed by Amazon's operational science, refined over 30 years of managing 400M+ Amazon SKUs, equipped with both 25+ specialized supply chain tools as well as Amazon forecasting technology. You can deliver actionable insights and recommendations out-of-the-box with clear, explainable reasoning you can trust and verify. 
• Adaptive intelligence architecture: AI teammates adapt to your unique business rules, work with your existing systems, and learn from your team’s actions, continuously translating those learnings into better planning, analysis, and recommendations. This intelligence compounds over time, without manual retraining, making every operation and team member increasingly more effective. 
• Next generation forecasting: AI teammates prevent problems before they start with next generation forecasts by orchestrating foundation models and Amazon forecasting technology to create item-level forecasts, detect forecast drift, and learn from your demand patterns and planners' decisions so forecasts continuously improve—preventing the accuracy decay that plagues traditional forecasting. 
• Operational intelligence: Lead a team of AI agents working 24/7 on your behalf, detecting variances and invisible patterns with automated root cause analysis that shows why the problem happened and actionable recommendations for addressing it. AI teammates triage thousands of exceptions for you, surfacing only what matters most, then executing your approved decisions.

Teams shift from spending days on manual coordination to focusing on strategic decisions that prevent stockouts, reduce working capital waste, and improve forecast accuracy.

Amazon Connect Decisions provides four core capabilities powered by AI teammates that continuously adapt to your goals, systems, and behaviors:

• Adaptive intelligence: Adaptive intelligence is the foundational infrastructure that powers all capabilities. AI teammates learn from every decision your team makes, capturing expertise, and translate it into better recommendations over time. This closed loop learning powers all capabilities, demand forecasting improves as teammates learn your patterns, supply planning adapts to your priorities, and institutional knowledge compounds across your organization. Unlike static systems that require manual retraining, AI agents continuously evolve with your business, ensuring recommendations stay aligned with how you actually operate. 
• Demand intelligence: AI teammates dynamically orchestrate multiple foundation models, intelligent forecasting tools, and continuously learn to generate better forecasts at the item level. Leveraging Amazon forecasting technology, AI agents generate forecasts from limited history, sparse patterns, and new product launches that automatically tune every cycle with learnings from your demand patterns and planner adjustments.  Through a natural language interface, you collaborate with AI agents to harmonize system-generated forecasts with customer commitments and cross-functional inputs, continuously monitoring accuracy with automated root cause analysis to deliver plans that stay aligned with reality. 
• Supply intelligence: AI teammates generate supply plans (preview) that continuously adapt to real-world constraints, learning from execution outcomes to improve future recommendations. AI agents work 24/7 monitoring inventory positions, supplier performance, and demand signals, detecting invisible patterns and performing automated root cause analysis that show why the problem happened. AI teammates triage thousands of exceptions for you, and surface only what matters through actionable recommendations grouped by common action, executing you’re approved decisions on your behalf. 
• Onboarding intelligence: Get up and running in weeks, not months. AI-powered onboarding agents guide you through natural language conversation to ingest and validate data, configure business rules, and connect systems. AI agents provide real-time validation and pre-configurations based on industry best practices, helping you start with sensible defaults that you can refine over time. The natural language interface and guided agent experience make setup accessible to everyone, not just IT teams, accelerating time to value. 

Together, these capabilities help you forecast accurately, plan effectively, and stay ahead of what's coming. 

Amazon Connect Decisions serves many industries, and customers have found early success in Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods, Automative, and Industrial Manufacturing. Here are some areas where Amazon Connect Decisions is standing out for customers across these industries: 

• Retail: Manage inventory across stores and distribution centers, improve forecast accuracy for seasonal and promotional demand 
• Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG): Balance service levels with working capital, coordinate across complex distribution networks 
• Automotive: Handle complex part hierarchies, manage supplier relationships, optimize aftermarket inventory 
• Industrial Manufacturing: Coordinate production planning with material availability, manage multi-node networks 

If your team struggles with fragmented planning processes, manual coordination across systems, or translating demand forecasts into executable supply plans, Amazon Connect Decisions can help. 

Contact us to start your free trial using your data. Amazon Connect Decisions guides you through data onboarding, configuration, and validation in plain English—no technical expertise required. Get set up in weeks, not months, with AI teammates that learn from your decisions and get smarter over time.

Yes. Amazon Connect Decisions is designed to work alongside your existing systems, not replace them. 

Amazon Connect Decisions integrates with your ERP systems, planning tools, and data sources, harmonizing signals into a single connected view while respecting your existing workflows. Whether you use spreadsheets, advanced planning systems, or a mix of both, Amazon Connect Decisions adapts to your current environment. You don't need to rip and replace, Amazon Connect Decisions makes your existing systems smarter. JDBC connections enable direct integration with any AWS Glue supported databases, or you can upload files in formats you already use. A data agent guides mapping and transformation in natural language.

Amazon Connect Decisions is currently available in the available in US East (N. Virginia) and Europe (Ireland). Additional Regions will be added based on customer demand. 

Supply intelligence helps teams operate differently with AI teammates that work 24/7 balancing constraints across your network and clustering thousands of exceptions into strategic decisions to prevent costly disruptions. 

• Exception detection and root cause analysis: During execution, AI teammates work 24/7 monitoring inventory positions, supplier performance, demand signals, and execution against plans across your network—triaging thousands of alerts and surfacing only the strategic decisions that matter grouped by action. Understand why exceptions are happening through automated root cause analysis (supplier delays, capacity constraints, and demand spikes) so you can treat the origin of problems, not just symptoms.  
• Supply planning (preview): During planning, AI teammates run mathematical optimization models to generate constraint-aware supply plans that respect production capacity, warehouse space limits, lead times, and material availability. The system surfaces planning-time exceptions based on configurable thresholds and planning rules, recommending corrective actions before issues become problems. 
• Actionable recommendations: Receive specific, prioritized recommendations for purchase orders, transfer orders, and supply planning decisions, with clear explanations you can trust. You review and approve, then AI teammates learn and execute approved recommendations on your behalf, closing the loop from insight to action and becoming your single source of truth instead of managing fragmented data across multiple tools. The result: Your team reduces decision cycles from weeks to hours while improving inventory efficiency. 

The result: Your team reduces decision cycles from weeks to hours while improving inventory efficiency. 

Amazon Connect Decisions transforms how your team manages supply and inventory. 

• Planning-time visibility: During planning, Amazon Connect Decisions generates optimal supply plans using mathematical optimization and surfaces projected exceptions before they become problems. You see planning-time issues and can adjust proactively. 
• Constraint-aware planning: Translate demand forecasts into feasible supply plans that respect constraints so plans stay connected to reality, not wishful thinking.  
• Stop fighting fires: Amazon Connect Decisions surfaces what matters before exceptions become production stoppages or stockouts. You can prevent or see risks coming and have time to respond. 
• Intelligent prioritization: Amazon Connect Decisions clusters thousands of exceptions into strategic decisions, ranked by your priorities—impact, urgency, customer service levels, working capital. Your team addresses a few high-impact decisions instead of triaging hundreds of reactive alerts. 
• Learn from decisions: When your team accepts, rejects, or modifies recommendations, Amazon Connect Decisions learns and gets smarter. The AI teammates build a supply chain brain that captures institutional knowledge, so when planners leave, their expertise stays. 
• Answer questions on demand: Use natural language to ask questions, dive deeper into exceptions, understand trade-offs, and validate decisions, getting answers in minutes instead of days.

Accuracy and trust are fundamental to Amazon Connect Decisions. Every recommendation comes with clear explanations (the why behind the decision, the data sources used, the constraint violations, and the expected impact). You can validate the logic before acting. 

Amazon Connect Decisions leverages supply chain science and algorithms refined over Amazon's 30+ years of managing complex global networks. You benefit from expertise proven at Amazon's scale. Amazon Connect Decisions shows historical performance metrics, audit trails, and back-test results so you can measure accuracy across time periods before committing to forward-looking decisions. 

You stay in control. Amazon Connect Decisions makes recommendations; your team decides. And when you override or adjust, Amazon Connect Decisions learns from those decisions and gets smarter, improving future recommendations based on your specific business context. Customers report high confidence in recommendations because they can see and validate the reasoning, not just trust a black box. 

Absolutely. Amazon Connect Decisions adapts to your business, not the other way around. Set goals, policies, and priorities in plain language. Tell Amazon Connect Decisions what matters to your business (service levels, working capital targets, lead time policies) and the AI teammates configure accordingly. Configure thresholds and planning rules that define when planning-time and execution exceptions are surfaced. Start with proven configurations based on Amazon's operational experience, then refine as needed. You're not starting with a blank slate. 

Begin with basic rules and data, validate outputs, then add complexity as you learn. Amazon Connect Decisions guides you through setup and shows real-time preview before committing. Test rules and metrics before they affect live operations. See preview insights, adjust thresholds, confirm logic, and build confidence before going live. As your business evolves (new products, new suppliers, changing seasonality), update rules in natural language and Amazon Connect Decisions adapts immediately. 

Demand intelligence helps your team generate forecasts that continuously improve, build consensus plans through AI-orchestrated collaboration, and prevent forecast inaccuracies before they impact your business. 

• Baseline forecasting: Generate demand forecasts by SKU, location, and time, including promotional events, seasonal patterns, and uncertainty profiles. Amazon Connect Decisions works even with limited or imperfect historical data. 
• Consensus planning: Harmonize multiple forecast inputs (statistical models, customer forecasts, cross functional team inputs, SIOP processes) into a single aligned demand plan that stakeholders trust. 
• Natural language interface: Interact with your demand plan through conversational AI. Ask questions, analyze patterns, adjust forecasts, and understand drivers—all in plain language without complex interfaces. 
• Closed-loop planning: Forecasts automatically flow into supply planning, creating constraint-aware plans that respond to reality. When execution diverges from plan, Amazon Connect Decisions updates demand signals accordingly. 

The result: Better forecasts, faster consensus, and plans that stay aligned with what's actually happening. 

The Amazon Connect Decisions forecasting approach is built for real-world complexity. AI teammates dynamically orchestrate intelligent forecasting-specific tools and a breadth of models, working together to find the optimal forecast for each SKU based on your unique data characteristics. 

Unlike traditional forecasting solutions that require months of training data and manual configuration, or LLM-based solutions where AI simply helps you ask questions about existing predictions, our foundation models are part of the forecasting engine itself, providing true zero-shot capability for products without historical data, such as new product introductions. 

Advanced forecasting techniques work with limited history, sparse data, and new products, leveraging algorithms refined over 30 years of managing hundreds of millions of SKUs across diverse industries and product categories. 

After forecast creation, AI teammates continuously monitor actual demand against forecasts, automatically calculating accuracy metrics including Forecast Accuracy, Bias%, MAPE, WAPE, and MAE. When forecast variance exceeds your defined thresholds, the system detects the exception, performs automated root cause analysis (unmodeled promotions, incorrect seasonality factors, supplier changes, external factors), and provides actionable recommendations to improve forecast accuracy. 

As Amazon Connect Decisions observes your demand patterns and team adjustments, the system gets better, continuously improving forecast accuracy. You can understand what's driving your business (forecast changes, demand patterns, supply constraints, recommended actions) with clear explanations in natural language.

Yes. Amazon Connect Decisions is built for collaborative planning. It blends statistical forecasts with customer commitments, and cross-functional inputs into a single demand plan. Everyone works from the same forecast with one source of truth accessible to stakeholders. Team members ask questions, propose adjustments, and discuss trade-offs through the planning hub. 

AI teammates continuously monitor forecast performance in real time, tracking accuracy metrics and detecting when forecasts drift from actual demand. When performance degrades beyond your defined thresholds, they identify the root cause and recommend corrective actions, getting smarter with each adjustment, so your team can act before small variances become costly disruptions. 

Complete activity logs show who made what changes and why. You can configure permissions by products, sites, and organizational hierarchies so the right people see the right information. Collaboration happens in the flow of work, not through separate coordination meetings. 

Amazon Connect Decisions is designed to work with the data you already have. Core requirements include sales or demand history, inventory positions, product information, and location/site data for the foundation. Other optional but helpful data that improves accuracy includes: promotional calendars, supplier lead times, capacity constraints, safety stock policies, customer forecast data, and external demand drivers.

Start with basic data to get initial forecasts, then add layers (promotions, causal factors, constraints) to improve accuracy. You don't need everything perfect on day one.  

Amazon Connect Decisions supports multiple formats. Upload files, connect through methods like JDBC to AWS Glue supported databases, or integrate with existing planning systems. The Amazon Connect Decisions data agent guides mapping in natural language. Amazon Connect Decisions validates your data, flags missing or problematic fields, and helps you fix issues before they affect forecasts.

Amazon Connect Decisions is designed for fast time-to-value. Implementation speed depends on data readiness and organizational alignment, but customers can be in production within a few weeks to a few months. Unlike traditional planning systems that require months of configuration and specialist expertise, Amazon Connect Decisions uses AI-guided onboarding through natural language conversation and intelligent defaults to accelerate setup. Onboarding agents guide you through connecting systems and mapping data in plain English, with real-time previews and data quality validation before forecasts run. You don't need perfect configuration on day one. Start with default settings, validate outputs, and refine rules based on what you learn. Amazon Connect Decisions helps you build confidence progressively. 

You can also validate fit and value during the trial period before committing to full deployment.

Amazon Connect Decisions is built for supply chain professionals, not data scientists. Configure rules, ask questions, analyze forecasts, and understand recommendations in plain language. No complex formulas and no scripting required. The interface speaks the language of supply chain (SKUs, lead times, safety stock, demand spikes), not technical jargon.  not technical expertise.

AI-powered onboarding agents guide you through the step-by-step setup, automatically detecting your data structure, preparing your data to work with Amazon Connect Decisions, and helping you validate data quality before forecasts run, all through natural language conversation. Start with industry-agnostic default configurations that work across retail, automotive, manufacturing, and other sectors. You customize from a working baseline, not a blank slate. Amazon Connect Decisions shows its work. Understand why recommendations are made, what data drove decisions, and what constraints were considered, building trust without requiring technical deep dives. Share your institutional knowledge—whether documented or conversational, to kickstart Amazon Connect Decisions. Upload standard operating procedures, planning policies, and other documented knowledge sources, or simply converse with AI teammates to explain your processes, building your central knowledge store that gets smarter the more you interact and use the product. Collaborating with IT when needed can accelerate onboarding. But once configured, day-to-day use requires supply chain knowledge, not technical expertise. 

Yes. Amazon Connect Decisions offers a free trial so you can validate fit and value. Connect your actual supply chain data and see how Amazon Connect Decisions performs with your specific challenges (your SKUs, your demand patterns, your constraints). 

Run back-tests against historical data, compare Amazon Connect Decisions' forecasts against your current methods, and validate recommendation quality before going live. Let your team interact with AI teammates, ask questions in natural language, and see explainable recommendations, building confidence across stakeholders. Understand implementation requirements, data readiness, and organizational fit before committing.

Amazon Connect Decisions uses AI teammate-based pricing, which is a simple, predictable model aligned with how you think about what your team needs. You don’t pay per user; you pay for AI teammates that do the work. This removes adoption friction so everyone on your supply chain team can access Amazon Connect Decisions without worrying about seat costs.  

Each AI teammate has certain capabilities and can handle specific workload. As your business grows, so do your AI teammates.

Contact our team to discuss pricing that fits your specific needs and business size. 

Yes. Amazon Connect Decisions offers a free trial so you can validate value before purchasing.  

The trial period begins the day you upload data into your instance and start setting up Amazon Connect Decisions. This ensures you have adequate time to validate fit, not just sign up and let time elapse. During the free trial, there is no commitment required. You can explore Amazon Connect Decisions risk-free.  

Get started today to see how Amazon Connect Decisions can transform your supply chain planning and decisioning.