AWS Specialization Program: 2025 Enhancements and Looking Ahead

By Kelly Costlow Dorantes, Global Specialization Program Benefits – AWS
By Laila Chatelain, Sr. Manager, Specialization Programs – AWS
By Chris Butler, Specializations Program Tech Business Developer – AWS
By Ebrar Erdem, Specializations Program Tech Business Developer – AWS

As cloud technology continues to reshape industries, 2025 marked a pivotal year for AWS Specialization Partners—from implementing agentic AI to enhancing security frameworks, Partners delivered customer innovation at scale.

The impact was recognized at the 2025 AWS Partner Awards, where 82% of award recipients were AWS Specialization Partners—reflecting the exceptional value these Partners consistently deliver to customers through proven expertise and measurable business outcomes.

“New Omdia research shows that AWS Partners can achieve up to a US$7.13 revenue multiplier, and we’re investing in AWS Specialization Partners to accelerate this growth,” said Sachin Vora, Director of AWS Partner Programs. “In 2025, we evolved the program with streamlined validation processes that reduced application time by 70%, enhanced AWS Marketplace visibility through badging and co-sell scoring, and additional marketing funding. These enhancements delivered the benefits our Partners need to scale their practices, and we’re continuing this investment in 2026 to drive even greater business outcomes.”

In this blog, we recap 2025 program enhancements for AWS Specialization Partners and preview what’s coming in 2026 as we continue investing in Partner success.

2025 highlights

Eighty-seven percent of customers highlight AWS Specializations as a top three criteria for Partner selection, with 60% ranking it their primary deciding factor (Canalys). To meet this demand, we made it easier for customers to find the right expertise, and expanded the benefits that help Partners scale their practices:

AWS Specialization badge categories

To help Partners better showcase their validated expertise across specific technologies and use cases, we launched AWS Specialization badge categories. This allows Partners to create Specialization badges at the category level—making it easier for customers to identify and select Partners with the right expertise for their unique business needs.

Figure 1 – AWS Specialization badge categories. 

Specialization badging in AWS Marketplace

Building on this momentum, we integrated AWS Specialization badges into AWS Marketplace search results, making Partner validation visible to customers during the buying decision. This allows customers to quickly identify Partners with technical expertise through AWS Marketplace’s AI search.

Customers can use the Buyer’s Guide to learn how to search and engage with an AWS Specialization Partner.

Figure 2 – Product listing with AWS Specialization badge in AWS Marketplace.

Visibility into co-sell opportunities

We launched the AWS co-sell recommendation score, visible to AWS Specialization Partners in AWS Partner Central. The dashboard provides Partners with visibility into co-sell opportunities across industries and regions. With AWS Specializations serving as a key factor in internal AWS Partner recommendation algorithms, this transparency empowers Partners to make strategic decisions about which Specializations to pursue based on their go-to-market priorities.

Additional Marketing Development Funds

We expanded Marketing Development Funds (MDF) to stack with Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) benefits and increased the amount of funding for qualifying Partners, like AI Competency and Managed Services Providers (MSP). Additionally, Partners achieving validation in the SMB Competency or any of the new AI Competency agentic AI categories will receive $25,000 in MDF.

“The MDF support has been instrumental in expanding Rackspace’s market presence through strategic marketing initiatives as an AI Competency Partner,” said Kathleen Schneider, Chief Marketing Officer, Rackspace Technology. “Our focused investments in executive roundtables, customer testimonials, and targeted digital programs have strengthened our enterprise relationships, and we’re excited to build on this success with the additional funding being introduced for Agentic AI categories in 2026.”

AWS PartnerEquip expansion

We scaled AWS PartnerEquip with more ways for Partners to engage with enablement led by AWS experts, with thousands of Partners participating in both live and virtual events globally.

PartnerEquip: Live expanded to four locations—Bengaluru, Seattle, Washington D.C., and London. These in-person sessions delivered advanced technical content through hands-on labs, strategic roadmap insights, and access to AWS experts, with opportunities to participate in executive briefings and roundtables.

We also increased PartnerEquip: Virtual events, which enabled Partners worldwide to receive early access to strategic roadmaps and specialized enablement and technical guidance with multi-language voice over and captioning.

New signature benefits

We introduced 30+ new signature benefits to support Partners’ build, market, sell, and grow strategies through new opportunities, including:

• Government Competency Partners gained access to AWS Government Day, a virtual learning event hosted on AWS PartnerEquip: Virtual.
• SMB Competency hosted 8 global SMB Summits across NAMER (3), EMEA (3), LATAM (1), and GCR (1).
• The AWS MSP Program announced new benefits for Customer Management, Strategic Services and Government Practice.

“The SMB Competency validated our strategy and how we work with small and medium businesses,” said Diego Marques, Head of Professional Services at Darede. “Competencies are important for us because they give us access to resources and programs that help us accelerate our business, sales, and ultimately, help the customers.”

Automated application process

To streamline the application experience for Partners, we launched an automatic validation agent in AWS Partner Central for the AI Competency. This agent-led validation will be expanded to include additional Specializations throughout 2026—automatically processes documentation and provides real-time feedback, reducing application processing time by up to 70%.

New AWS Specialization categories

We launched categories and enhancements across key competencies, including:

• AWS AI Competency: Three agentic AI categories to address the growing demand for autonomous systems.
• AWS Resilience Competency: Expanded to Software Partners, with three categories to strengthen critical workload protection.
• AWS MSSP Competency: Seven security categories to help customers identify Partners with specific security expertise. MSSP Partners also have the option to showcase how they integrate validated ISV solutions from AWS Security Competency Partners into their managed security services.
• AWS Government Competency: Three categories aligned with mission-critical government requirements.

Watch: Ruba Borno, VP Global Specialists and Partners announces the categories at re:Invent.

Looking ahead

Building on the momentum of 2025, we’ll continue scaling the AWS Specialization Program to drive innovation and customer success.

Partners can expect enhanced application automation across more Specializations, new MDF categories, and increased AWS Marketplace discoverability features—creating even more opportunities to demonstrate their expertise and drive customer outcomes.

Get started

AWS Specialization Partners combine deep industry expertise with proven technical excellence to deliver real business outcomes across any segment, service, or use case.

Customers: Work with an AWS Specialization Partner

Explore validated solutions and connect with AWS Specialization Partners in AWS Marketplace.

Partners: Become an AWS Specialization Partner

AWS Partners interested in joining the Specialization Program can review the Specialization Programs Guide and access applications in AWS Partner Central (login required).

To learn more about the benefits, review the AWS Specialization Benefits Guide.