- Charter struck a strategic partnership deal with AWS this week
- It plans to give developers across the company access to the cloud giant's GenAI tools
- The idea is not just to boost productivity but also speed innovation
Charter is putting generative AI to work across the company with a little help from AWS. The operator just struck a deal to standardize its software development practices on Amazon Q Developer, allowing it to tap into generative AI tools that could help Charter deliver new products and services faster than ever before.
Charter’s CTIO Jake Perlman told Fierce it has “a lot of AI work going on,” but noted the AWS announcement is focused squarely on developer productivity.
“You hear a lot in the industry about the ability for developers to generate code, to automatically create design review documents, to be able to effectively migrate legacy applications,” he said. “This is really around giving our development community GenAI coding tools to make them more efficient and effective at their job.”
Perlman said Charter has been piloting a “bunch” of AI tools for a while now but has been much more aggressive in using AWS’ toolset over the past few months. The idea now is to move beyond the pilot phase and democratize access across the organization.
All told, there will be “several thousand people” using AWS’ GenAI tools, he said.
Asked what exactly Charter’s developers will be working on, Perlman said it runs the gamut.
“They’re doing everything from HR and finance apps, to writing code as embedded software on our Wi-Fi routers, to provisioning and ordering and activation, to enterprise services, to the internal corporate website,” he said.
The AWS announcement comes after Charter’s CEO Chris Winfrey talked up AI’s potential on the company’s third quarter earnings call in October. At the time, he said the company believed AI could have a “material” impact on its business and help lower its operating costs.
There have been concerns about whether and how GenAI will impact jobs across not just telecom but all industries. Asked if the goal is to improve efficiency - to do more with the same number or fewer people - or simply to speed innovation, Perlman said all of those possibilities could apply. A Charter representative later clarified the goal is not headcount reduction.
Perlman said that at the end of the day it’s about making life easier for both customers and employees.
“Getting things to market, getting tools to our agents to handle things more effectively, getting tools to our customers to use things how they want to, getting new products and services out there in the quickest, most efficient way with the highest quality is what we’re after,” he concluded.
Update 10:20 AM ET 11/13/2025: This story has been updated to clarify that headcount reduction is not a goal of Charter's GenAI adoption.