The Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI business alone hit a $25B+ annual revenue run rate in the most recent quarter. Yet the enterprise workloads Andy Jassy expects to become AI's largest segment have barely started to scale. That gap is where the next generation of Marketplace revenue gets built.

16 companies have crossed $1B through AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud marketplaces. On Tuesday we launch the report on how they reached the milestone, what they built to get there, and what other teams can apply. Here are 5 hard questions every Cloud GTM leader asks, answered from our research.

Microsoft just changed how it reports Azure. For the first time, we can compare a reported, calendar-aligned Azure revenue with AWS and Google Cloud.

AI companies are being told to get into the token path to drive customer adoption. But another path matters just as much: the distribution path. ​ The token-path thesis says companies should align their economics with where AI usage happens. The distribution path asks a different question: how close are you to the way customers discover, choose, buy and use technology?

Microsoft's data: channel-led Marketplace deals are 80% larger. Mira Ayad, GM of Global Marketplace at Microsoft, shared it at our event earlier this month. The channel panel that followed - Microsoft, TD SYNNEX, Varonis, AHEAD and MongoDB - explained why marketplace strategy and channel strategy increasingly belong in the same GTM plan.

Google, Microsoft and AWS have already signed contracts for $1.7 trillion of AI infrastructure, on top of the capex figures everyone quotes each quarter. They are largely non-cancellable. Which means their next job is filling it, and that one they can't solve without partners.

"Marketplace is not complicated. Marketplace is sophisticated.It only becomes complicated if you bring it in the 11th hour." Mira Ayad’s closing line captured our third annual Microsoft Marketplace event last week, with 200+ alliance and Cloud GTM leaders joining live. Five insights stood out:

Microsoft Marketplace sales doubled again in FY26, its third consecutive year — Mira Ayad, GM of Global Marketplace, highlighted this week. That compounds to 8X Marketplace growth from FY23. The drivers underneath it are worth planning around. Here is what stood out in Microsoft Partner GTM Kickoff: