AWS and Amazon WorkSpaces recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service 

AWS has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service (DaaS) for the third consecutive year, evaluated on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. We believe this recognition reflects our sustained commitment to building the cloud desktop that organizations can grow with, one that delivers operational value and security confidence today while providing the foundation for how businesses will need to work in an AI-enabled future.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service, July 2026. AWS is positioned as a Leader

Amazon WorkSpaces serves organizations across industries and regulatory environments, providing secure, managed cloud desktops and application streaming that people rely on to access the applications and data they need from anywhere, on any device. It is backed by a financially committed 99.9% uptime SLA and operates across one of the broadest global cloud footprints available for data residency and multinational deployment. For customers who need their desktop infrastructure to keep pace with where their business is heading rather than constrain it, that combination of reach, reliability, and the freedom to operate their way is what we believe positions Amazon WorkSpaces in the Leader quadrant.

In this year’s evaluation, Gartner called out three strengths that we believe speak directly to what customers value most.

Operations

Amazon WorkSpaces delivers highly scalable DaaS through global cloud infrastructure with native support for infrastructure as code, enabling consistent performance, resilience, and rapid provisioning at scale. For IT leaders managing growing or distributed workforces, this means Amazon WorkSpaces handles operational complexity so they can focus on the outcomes that matter to their business.

Geographic strategy

AWS maintains one of the broadest global cloud footprints available today, which allows organizations to deploy DaaS workloads close to their users and meet data residency requirements across jurisdictions. For multinational enterprises, this translates into consistent service delivery across geographies without requiring them to assemble a separate global desktop operations framework.

Overall viability

Gartner noted that AWS benefits from “substantial financial resources, sustained investment capacity and a broad ecosystem.” We believe this matters because it reflects our commitment to giving customers choice in how they build and operate their desktop environments. Amazon WorkSpaces supports Windows and Linux, multiple streaming protocols, and bring-your-own-license models. Customers can integrate with the management and brokering tools they already use, deploy across the regions they need, and adopt new capabilities at their own pace.

Recent Amazon WorkSpaces capabilities

These are not abstract commitments. In just the past few months, we have delivered capabilities that directly address what customers have been asking for.

Amazon WorkSpaces enhanced the PCoIP to DCV protocol migration giving customers access to broader OS support (including Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025), stronger security features like certificate-based authentication and WebAuthN, and improved streaming performance. These new enhancements give administrators the confidence to migrate without risking data loss or end-user disruption.

Linux WorkSpace Migration is now available across all supported Linux distributions. Customers running Ubuntu, RHEL, or Rocky Linux can move between operating system versions while their user data migrates automatically, without manual intervention or downtime.

Nested virtualization now enables developers to run Docker Desktop, WSL2, Android emulators, and containerized workloads directly on their cloud desktops without separate physical hardware.

And  Amazon WorkSpaces for AI agents, gives organizations the ability to bring AI agents into the same secure, governed desktop environment their people already use, without building or buying separate infrastructure or adding operational burden to IT.

Each of these investments reflects the same principle: when a customer’s environment needs to evolve, the infrastructure should make that evolution simple rather than painful.

What makes this year’s recognition particularly meaningful is that it reflects the first Gartner evaluation of Amazon WorkSpaces for AI agents. The workspace is no longer just where people do their work; it is becoming the environment where AI agents and people operate side by side, accessing the same enterprise applications within the same security and compliance framework. We have built Amazon WorkSpaces so that AI agents work within the same security perimeter, identity model, and audit trail as human employees, with AI-enabled operations for monitoring, scaling, and user experience optimization. For IT leaders asking how to bring AI agents into their environment without building a separate governance layer or adding operational burden, that is the answer we are delivering in production today. Read more about where we see this heading in The next workspace isn’t just for humans.

Amazon WorkSpaces is the cloud desktop your business will not outgrow. Every investment we make, from AI agent integration to zero-touch administration, is designed to deliver value within the service and security model our customers already operate, so that when their business needs grow or change, their infrastructure is already in place. We believe this year’s recognition tells us we are on the right path, and we will continue building with our customers to stay there.

If you are evaluating your cloud desktop strategy or the broader Desktop as a Service landscape, I recommend reading the full report.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service, 5 August 2026. By Stuart Downes, Todd Larivee, Sunil Kumar. Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates. This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from AWS.

Parul Shah is Director of Marketing for Amazon WorkSpaces at AWS.