Introduction
At AWS re:Invent 2025, Amazon announced a comprehensive expansion of its Nova AI portfolio, introducing four new Nova 2 models, a pioneering service for building custom models, and a breakthrough platform for creating reliable AI agents. This announcement represents one of Amazon's most significant AI releases, positioning Nova as a competitive alternative to leading frontier models while introducing innovative services that address enterprise needs for customization and agentic automation.
The Nova 2 model family includes Nova 2 Lite, Nova 2 Pro, Nova 2 Sonic, and Nova 2 Omni, each optimized for different use cases from cost-effective reasoning to unified multimodal generation. Alongside these models, Amazon introduced Nova Forge, a first-of-its-kind "open training" service that enables organizations to build their own optimized variants of Nova models, and Nova Act, a service for building highly reliable AI agents that achieve 90% reliability on browser-based automation workflows.
This release comes as tens of thousands of companies are already using Nova for diverse applications, from producing high-quality content to automating multi-step tasks and accelerating AI agent development. The new models and services expand Amazon's AI offerings to address the full spectrum of enterprise AI needs, from general-purpose models to custom solutions and agentic automation.
Nova 2 Model Family
Nova 2 Lite: Fast and Cost-Effective Reasoning
Nova 2 Lite is Amazon's fast, cost-effective reasoning model designed for everyday workloads. It can process text, images, and videos to generate text, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.
Key Features:
- Adjustable reasoning depth: Customers can control how much step-by-step "thinking" the model performs before responding, balancing intelligence depth with speed and cost
- Multimodal processing: Handles text, images, and videos as inputs
- Built-in capabilities: Includes web grounding and code execution, allowing the model to search the web for current information and run code directly
- Industry-leading price performance: Delivers exceptional value in its intelligence class
Performance Benchmarks:
- Equal or better on 13 out of 15 benchmarks compared to Claude Haiku 4.5
- Equal or better on 11 out of 17 benchmarks compared to GPT-5 Mini
- Equal or better on 14 out of 18 benchmarks compared to Gemini Flash 2.5
Standout Capabilities:
- Processing documents and extracting information
- Extracting information from videos
- Generating code
- Providing accurate grounded answers
- Automating multi-step agentic workflows
Ideal Use Cases:
- Customer service chatbots
- Document processing
- Business automation
- Applications requiring fast, cost-effective AI
Nova 2 Pro: Amazon's Most Intelligent Model
Nova 2 Pro is Amazon's most intelligent reasoning model, designed for highly complex tasks where the highest accuracy is essential. It can process text, images, video, and speech to generate text.
Key Features:
- Advanced reasoning: Handles complex problem-solving and long-range planning
- Multimodal understanding: Processes text, images, video, and speech
- Knowledge distillation: Can serve as a "teacher" for transferring capabilities into smaller, more efficient "student" models
- Web grounding and code execution: Built-in capabilities for current information and code execution
Performance Benchmarks:
- Equal or better on 10 out of 16 benchmarks compared to Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Equal or better on 8 out of 16 benchmarks compared to GPT-5.1
- Equal or better on 15 out of 19 benchmarks compared to Gemini 2.5 Pro
- Equal or better on 8 out of 18 benchmarks compared to Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Strengths:
- Multi-document analysis
- Video reasoning
- Following complex instructions
- Solving advanced math problems
- Executing agentic and software engineering tasks
Ideal Use Cases:
- Agentic coding
- Long-range planning
- Sophisticated problem-solving
- Knowledge distillation for specialized models
- Applications requiring the highest accuracy
Nova 2 Sonic: Speech-to-Speech Conversational AI
Nova 2 Sonic is Amazon's speech-to-speech model that unifies text and speech understanding and generation for real-time, human-like conversational AI.
Key Features:
- Expanded multilingual support: Works across multiple languages with expressive voices
- Higher accuracy: Improved speech recognition and generation quality
- One-million token context window: Enables sustained interactions and long conversations
- Seamless switching: Users can switch between voice and text modes naturally
- Asynchronous task handling: Users can continue conversations while actions complete in the background
- Industry-leading price performance: Competitive with OpenAI's gpt-realtime and Gemini 2.5 Flash models
Integration Capabilities:
- Amazon Connect: Seamless integration with Amazon's contact center service
- Telephony providers: Works with Vonage, Twilio, AudioCodes
- Conversational AI frameworks: Integrates with LiveKit, Pipecat
Ideal Use Cases:
- Customer service applications
- AI assistants
- Interactive voice experiences
- Call center automation
- Voice-enabled applications
Nova 2 Omni: Unified Multimodal Generation
Nova 2 Omni represents an industry first: a unified multimodal reasoning and generation model that can process text, images, video, and speech inputs while generating both text and images.
Key Features:
- Unified processing: Handles text, images, video, and speech simultaneously
- Dual generation: Generates both text and images in a single workflow
- Massive context: Processes up to 750,000 words, hours of audio, long videos, and hundred-page documents
- Simultaneous analysis: Can analyze entire product catalogs, testimonials, brand guidelines, and video libraries at once
- Cost and complexity reduction: Eliminates the need to connect multiple specialized models
Capabilities:
- Multimodal reasoning: Strong performance on public benchmarks for documents, images, videos, and audio
- Image generation: Produces high-quality images similar to leading image-generation models
- Complete campaign generation: Marketing teams can analyze product details across all formats and generate complete campaigns including headlines, copy, social posts, and visuals in one workflow
Use Case Example: Marketing teams can analyze product details, customer testimonials, brand guidelines, and video libraries simultaneously, then instantly generate complete marketing campaigns including headlines, copy, social media posts, and visuals—all in a single workflow.
Ideal Use Cases:
- Marketing campaign generation
- Content creation across multiple formats
- Product catalog analysis
- Multimodal content analysis and generation
- Applications requiring both understanding and generation across formats
Nova Forge: Building Your Own Frontier Models
First-of-its-Kind Open Training Service
Nova Forge is a pioneering service that empowers organizations to build their own optimized variants of Nova models—called "Novellas"—by blending proprietary data with Nova's frontier capabilities. This service addresses a critical challenge organizations face when embedding proprietary knowledge into AI applications.
The Problem Nova Forge Solves: Organizations currently face three compromises when trying to integrate their expertise into AI:
- Surface-level customization: Customizing proprietary models only scratches the surface
- Regression risks: Continuing to train open-weights models without original training data risks losing foundational capabilities
- High costs: Building from scratch requires enormous expense
The Nova Forge Solution: Nova Forge pioneers "open training"—giving exclusive access to pre-trained, mid-trained, and post-trained Nova model checkpoints so customers can mix their proprietary data with Amazon Nova-curated datasets at every stage of model training.
Key Capabilities:
- Open training access: Access to model checkpoints at every training stage
- Data mixing: Blend proprietary data with Nova-curated datasets throughout training
- Reinforcement learning gyms: Train AI using custom environments that reflect real-world use cases
- Synthetic data distillation: Create smaller, faster models that maintain intelligence at lower cost
- Responsible AI toolkit: Implement safety controls for custom models
Result: A customized model that combines Nova's full knowledge and reasoning power with deep understanding of each organization's specific business needs.
Early Access and Availability
Current Availability:
- Customers can start building Novellas with Nova 2 Lite today
- Nova Forge customers get early access to Nova 2 Pro and Nova 2 Omni
- This gives customers a head start in building applications and their Novellas with even more capable models
Deployment: Once customers create their own frontier model with Nova Forge, they can deploy it on Amazon Bedrock with the same enterprise-grade security, scalability, and data privacy as all other Bedrock models. This complete solution—from building custom models to production deployment—ensures organizations achieve optimal AI performance tailored to their specific business needs.
Customer Success Stories
Organizations already building with Nova Forge include:
Reddit: "Working with Nova Forge is allowing us to improve content moderation on Reddit with a more unified system that's already delivering impressive results," said Chris Slowe, CTO, Reddit. "We're replacing a number of different models with a single, more accurate solution that makes moderation more efficient. The ability to replace multiple specialized ML workflows with one cohesive approach marks a shift in how we implement and scale AI across Reddit."
Other Early Customers:
- Booking.com
- Cosine AI
- Nimbus Therapeutics
- Nomura Research Institute
- OpenBabylon
- Sony
These organizations are building their own models with Nova Forge to better serve their unique requirements, demonstrating the value of custom model development for enterprise applications.
Nova Act: Reliable AI Agents for Browser Automation
Breakthrough Reliability for UI Automation
Nova Act is now available as a service on AWS for building and deploying highly reliable AI agents that can take actions in web browsers. Powered by a custom Nova 2 Lite model, Nova Act provides the fastest and easiest path to build and manage fleets of agents that automate browser-based tasks.
Key Achievement: Nova Act delivers 90% reliability on early customer workflows and outperforms competing models on relevant benchmarks.
How It Works: Nova Act achieves breakthrough reliability by training a custom Nova 2 Lite model through reinforcement learning, running thousands of tasks on hundreds of simulated web environments. This style of training allows Nova Act to excel on UI-based workflows.
Key Features:
- No-code playground: Start prototyping an agent in minutes using natural language prompts
- IDE integration: Refine Nova Act agents in familiar IDEs like VS Code
- AWS deployment: What customers build and test locally scales in production
- Comprehensive management: Management tools and monitoring through the Nova Act AWS console
- Production-ready: Built for enterprise-scale deployment
Ideal Workflows:
- Updating data in customer relationship management (CRM) systems
- Testing website functionality
- Submitting health insurance claims
- Any browser-based automation task
Customer Success Stories
Sola Systems: Startup Sola Systems integrated Nova Act to automate hundreds of thousands of workflows per month for their clients across business-critical tasks like reconciling payments, coordinating shipments, and updating medical records.
1Password: 1Password used Nova Act to enable users to access their logins with fewer manual steps. The solution works automatically with a single simple prompt that works across hundreds of different websites.
Hertz: Hertz accelerated its software delivery by 5x and eliminated its Quality Assurance (QA) bottleneck by using Nova Act to automate end-to-end testing across its rental platform—which processes millions in daily bookings. This transformed what used to take weeks into hours.
Amazon Leo: Amazon Leo eliminated its QA constraint ahead of its satellite internet launch by using Nova Act to write test scenarios in natural language that automatically execute and adapt across thousands of web and mobile test cases. This reduced what previously took weeks of engineering effort to minutes while running three times faster with zero AI costs after initial runs.
Enterprise Adoption and Use Cases
Real-World Applications
Organizations like Cisco, Siemens, Sumo Logic, and Trellix are using Nova 2 models for applications ranging from:
- Agentic threat detection: Using AI agents to identify and respond to security threats
- Video understanding: Analyzing video content for insights and automation
- Voice AI assistants: Deploying conversational AI for customer service and support
These use cases demonstrate the practical value of Nova 2 models across diverse industries and applications.
Integration with Amazon Bedrock
All Nova 2 models are available on Amazon Bedrock, Amazon's fully managed service for building and scaling generative AI applications. Bedrock provides:
- Enterprise-grade security: Comprehensive security controls and compliance
- Scalability: Handle workloads of any size
- Data privacy: Customer data remains private and secure
- Unified platform: Access to multiple AI models in one place
This integration makes Nova 2 models accessible to enterprises that need reliable, secure, and scalable AI solutions.
Technical Innovations
Built-in Web Grounding and Code Execution
Both Nova 2 Lite and Nova 2 Pro have built-in web grounding and code execution capabilities:
- Web grounding: Models can search the web for current information, ensuring responses stay anchored in up-to-date facts rather than relying solely on training data
- Code execution: Models can run code directly, enabling dynamic problem-solving and real-time computation
These capabilities make Nova models more practical for real-world applications where current information and computational capabilities are essential.
Multimodal Processing Advances
Nova 2 models demonstrate significant advances in multimodal processing:
- Nova 2 Lite and Pro: Process text, images, and videos
- Nova 2 Pro: Also processes speech
- Nova 2 Omni: Processes all modalities and generates both text and images
This progression shows Amazon's commitment to advancing multimodal AI capabilities, enabling more natural and comprehensive AI interactions.
Training and Efficiency
Nova 2 models are designed for efficiency:
- Price-performance leadership: Industry-leading price performance across the model family
- Optimized inference: Efficient processing for production workloads
- Scalable deployment: Built for enterprise-scale applications
These efficiency improvements make Nova 2 models practical for production deployments where cost and performance matter.
Competitive Positioning
Benchmark Performance
Nova 2 models demonstrate strong competitive performance:
Nova 2 Lite:
- Competitive with Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 Mini, and Gemini Flash 2.5
- Standout capabilities in document processing, video understanding, code generation, and agentic workflows
Nova 2 Pro:
- Competitive with Claude Sonnet 4.5, GPT-5.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Gemini 3 Pro Preview
- Strengths in multi-document analysis, video reasoning, complex instructions, advanced math, and software engineering
Nova 2 Sonic:
- Competitive with OpenAI's gpt-realtime and Gemini 2.5 Flash
- Industry-leading price performance for speech-to-speech applications
Nova 2 Omni:
- No direct competitors as the first unified multimodal generation model
- Strong performance on multimodal reasoning benchmarks
Unique Differentiators
Nova Forge:
- First-of-its-kind "open training" service
- Enables organizations to build custom frontier models
- Pioneers a new approach to custom model development
Nova Act:
- 90% reliability on browser automation workflows
- Custom training for UI automation
- Production-ready agent platform
These unique services position Amazon as offering more than just models—providing complete solutions for enterprise AI needs.
Strategic Implications
Enterprise AI Strategy
The Nova 2 announcement demonstrates Amazon's comprehensive approach to enterprise AI:
- Model diversity: Multiple models optimized for different use cases
- Customization: Nova Forge enables organizations to build custom solutions
- Automation: Nova Act provides reliable agentic automation
- Integration: All services integrated with Amazon Bedrock
This approach addresses the full spectrum of enterprise AI needs, from general-purpose models to custom solutions and automation.
Market Impact
The Nova 2 release demonstrates several important developments:
- Competitive performance: Strong benchmark results show Nova 2 models competing effectively with leading frontier models
- Innovation: Nova Forge and Nova Act introduce new approaches to custom model development and agentic automation
- Enterprise solutions: Comprehensive offerings address diverse enterprise AI needs
- Accessibility: Industry-leading price performance makes advanced AI capabilities more accessible
Developer and Enterprise Benefits
For Developers:
- Access to multiple high-performance models
- Tools for building custom models
- Platform for deploying reliable agents
- Integrated development experience
For Enterprises:
- Custom model development without building from scratch
- Reliable agentic automation for business processes
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance
- Scalable, production-ready solutions
Getting Started
Accessing Nova 2 Models
To learn more about Amazon Nova and start building:
- Website: Visit aws.amazon.com/bedrock/nova
- Developer Portal: Start building for free at nova.amazon.com/dev
- Amazon Bedrock: Access Nova 2 models through the Bedrock console
Next Steps
For Model Users:
- Explore Nova 2 Lite for cost-effective applications
- Try Nova 2 Pro for complex reasoning tasks
- Experiment with Nova 2 Sonic for voice applications
- Test Nova 2 Omni for multimodal generation
For Custom Model Development:
- Start building Novellas with Nova 2 Lite today
- Get early access to Nova 2 Pro and Nova 2 Omni as a Nova Forge customer
- Plan your proprietary data integration with Nova-curated datasets
For Agent Development:
- Start prototyping with Nova Act's no-code playground using natural language prompts
- Refine agents in familiar IDEs like VS Code
- Deploy to AWS for production use with comprehensive management tools
Conclusion
Amazon's Nova 2 announcement represents a significant expansion of its AI portfolio, introducing four powerful models, a pioneering custom model development service, and a breakthrough platform for reliable AI agents. With industry-leading price performance, unique capabilities like unified multimodal generation, and innovative services like Nova Forge and Nova Act, Amazon positions Nova as a comprehensive solution for enterprise AI needs.
The combination of competitive model performance, customization capabilities, and reliable automation addresses the full spectrum of enterprise requirements—from general-purpose AI to specialized solutions and agentic workflows. As organizations continue to adopt AI at scale, Nova 2 models and services provide the tools needed to build, customize, and deploy AI solutions that meet specific business needs.
Key Takeaways:
- Four powerful models: Nova 2 Lite, Pro, Sonic, and Omni cover diverse use cases from cost-effective reasoning to unified multimodal generation
- Industry-leading performance: Strong benchmark results across multiple model categories
- Nova Forge innovation: First-of-its-kind service for building custom frontier models with proprietary data
- Nova Act reliability: 90% reliability on browser automation workflows, transforming business process automation
- Enterprise-ready: All services integrated with Amazon Bedrock for security, scalability, and compliance
- Proven results: Early customers demonstrate significant value across diverse applications
This development highlights that enterprise AI is moving beyond general-purpose models toward customized solutions and reliable automation. Amazon's Nova 2 portfolio provides the tools organizations need to build AI solutions that truly serve their unique business requirements.
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