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Product

KIRO BY AWS

Presented by: Aayush Agrawal & JayaLaxmi

Case

Study

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Table

    • Roadmap & Features
    • Vision & Strategy
    • Success Metrics
    • Reflection & Next Steps
    • Go-To-Market Plan
    • Executive Summary
    • Product & Market
    • Competitive Analysis
    • Personas & Journeys
    • The Core Problem
    • SWOT Analysis

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Contents

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Executive

    • The Promise: Kiro aimed to fix messy AI code with a structured, "spec-driven" workflow.

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    • The Problem: Instead, it alienated developers with "abysmal performance" , a rigid "straitjacket" workflow, and a critical loss of control.

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    • Our Pivot: We will Rebuild Trust by delivering radical control and reliability fixes.

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    • Our Strategy: We will win by leveraging the AWS ecosystem to become the smartest AI partner for developers.

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    • The Outcome: Increase developer trust and retention, making Kiro the #1 IDE for professional AWS development.

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Summary

KIRO BY AWS

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Product

Market

    • Size: $4.86B AI code tools market (2023).

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    • Growth: 27.1% CAGR in AI code tools.

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    • Opportunity: Lead the shift to "agentic development".

Product

    • Mission: Turn "vibe coding" into "viable code".

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    • Method: A "spec-driven" workflow that plans first.

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    • Process: Requirements -> Design -> Tasks pipeline.

& Market

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Competitor

Analysis

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User

Personas

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Demographic Information

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    • Name: Indie Ian
    • Age: 32 years old
    • Occupation: Freelance Full-Stack Developer
    • Location: Austin, Texas
    • Income Range: $95,000 - $160,000

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The Individual Developer

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Ian is a pragmatic and highly skilled developer who thrives on efficiency. He juggles multiple client projects and values tools that help him deliver high-quality work quickly and reliably..

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Personality

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    • Results-Oriented
    • Impatient with friction
    • Adaptable
    • Pragmatic

Problems

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    • Forced into a "rigid, standardized, inflexible pipeline" even for simple tasks.
    • Constantly blocked by the IDE's "abysmal performance" and "slow as sin" responsiveness.

Challenges

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    • Managing context switching between different client projects and tech stacks.
    • Finding tools that accelerate development without sacrificing his control over the final code.

Goals and Needs

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    • To "increase development speed" and deliver projects faster.
    • To "maintain consistent quality" across all his work.
    • To find ways for "better project organization".

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Demographic Information

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    • Name: Architect Anna
    • Age: 45 years old
    • Occupation: Tech Lead / Principal Engineer
    • Location: Seattle, Washington
    • Income Range: $180,000 - $250,000+

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The Senior Architect

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Anna is an experienced engineering leader responsible for the long-term health of her company's codebase. She thinks strategically about architecture, maintainability, and team-wide best practices.

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Personality

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    • Meticulous
    • Strategic
    • Detail-Oriented
    • Risk-Averse

Problems

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    • The AI makes "mind-numbingly stupid" mistakes, like creating circular dependencies in AWS CDK code.
    • On complex projects, the model is prone to "go off the rails," ignoring the established plan.

Challenges

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    • Preventing the accumulation of long-term "technical debt from AI-generated code".
    • Enforcing consistent documentation and testing standards across her development team.

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Goals and Needs

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    • To "implement production-ready AI coding workflows".
    • To "maintain code quality standards" and architectural consistency.
    • To "enable team collaboration" and reduce onboarding time for new engineers.

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Demographic Information

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    • Name: Learner Leo
    • Age: 21 years old
    • Occupation: Computer Science Student
    • Location: Berkeley, California
    • Income Range: <$25,000 (part-time work)

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The Learner

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Leo is a bright and ambitious student, eager to learn the professional practices that will set him up for a successful career in software engineering. He actively seeks out tools that can bridge the gap between theory and practice.

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Personality

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    • Eager to Learn
    • Inquisitive
    • Methodical
    • Easily frustrated by broken tools

Problems

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    • After carefully following the guided steps, the final application generated by the AI "did not work".
    • Frequent IDE crashes and "unexpected error" messages constantly interrupt his learning flow.

Challenges

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    • Bridging the gap between academic computer science concepts and real-world engineering practices.
    • Building a portfolio of working, impressive projects to secure a top-tier internship or job.

Goals and Needs

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    • To understand a complete, professional Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) from start to finish.
    • To use Kiro's structured process as an "invaluable educational tool".

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Customer Journey Map

Awareness

Stage

Consideration

Purchase

Retention

Advocacy

AWS Blog, Hacker News, Reddit

Reading the "spec-driven" vision

Hype creates unrealistic expectations

Set clear, honest messaging

Developer Reviews, YouTube

Comparing Kiro vs. Cursor; weighing pros/cons

Conflicting reviews (visionary vs. unusable)

Provide clear use-case guides & free trial

Website, VS Code Marketplace

Installing the IDE, starting a project

Slow initial indexing; confusing pricing

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Simplify onboarding; ensure fast first run

The IDE, Error Messages, GitHub Issues

Building features, experiencing core loop

Poor performance, constant errors, no control

Implement roadmap (control & reliability fixes)

Social Media, Word of Mouth

Praising the vision or warning others of flaws

Negative experience creates "anti-advocates"

Fix issues, then launch referral programs

Touchpoints

Customer Actions

Customer Experience

Pain Points

Opportunities

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"Individual developers, whose key advantage is speed and flexibility, are trying to leverage AI but are forced to battle rigid, unreliable tools. Products like Kiro impose heavyweight processes on simple tasks , suffer from crippling performance issues , and strip away developer control —turning a promise of acceleration into a constant source of frustration."

hello@reallygreatsite.com

Problem

Statement

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S (Strengths)

W (Weaknesses)

    • Visionary Method: A unique "spec-driven development" philosophy that creates well-planned, maintainable code.

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    • Ecosystem Advantage: Deep integration with the AWS ecosystem provides a powerful competitive and distribution advantage.
    • Performance & Reliability: Plagued by "abysmal performance," high resource usage, and frequent, blocking errors.

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    • Rigid "Straitjacket" Workflow: The mandatory, inflexible process over-engineers simple tasks and removes developer control.

O (Opportunities)

T (Threats)

    • Exploding Market: The AI code tools market is growing at a staggering 27.1% CAGR.

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    • No Clear Winner: 93% of developers use multiple AI tools, proving a massive opportunity exists for a single, reliable solution.
    • Flexible Competitors: Tools like Cursor are capturing frustrated users by offering a more flexible, developer-controlled experience.

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    • High Computational Cost: The immense cost of agentic AI makes it difficult to deliver a reliable and affordable service at scale.

S W O T

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Vision

& Strategy

Our Vision

We aspire to empower developers by transforming Kiro into their most trusted AI co-pilot. Our goal is to augment developers’ skills with powerful, controllable, and reliable automation, ensuring they have the tools needed to excel in an ever-evolving tech landscape.

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Our Strategy

    • Rebuild Trust by Putting the Developer in Command:
      • Our immediate priority is to address the core performance and reliability issues that have rendered the tool "unusable." By doing so, we aim to restore confidence in Kiro’s capabilities.
      • We will offer radical, line-by-line control over all AI changes, directly responding to the community's demand for more granular permissions. This approach will empower developers to tailor the AI’s actions to their specific needs and preferences.

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    • Win by Equipping Developers with 'AWS Superpowers':
      • We plan to leverage deep integration with the AWS ecosystem as a pivotal competitive advantage. By seamlessly connecting Kiro with AWS services, developers will gain unprecedented capabilities to enhance their projects.
      • Utilizing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), we will minimize the "mind-numbingly stupid" mistakes currently made by the AI with AWS services, thereby enhancing accuracy and efficiency in cloud-based operations.

Through these strategic initiatives, we aim to solidify Kiro’s position as an indispensable tool in the developer's arsenal.

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System Development

Build the system based on the specified technical requirements.

Planning & Approval

Determine system needs and get budget approval.

Testing

Conduct system tests to ensure everything functions correctly.

Go-Live

Fully implement the system in daily operations.

IT IMPLEMENTATION ROADMAP

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Feature

Priortization

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Go-To-Market

Plan

Our Core Advantage: Zero-Cost Marketing

Phase 1: Acknowledge & Apologize

    • We will leverage the full power of the AWS ecosystem for distribution.
    • This includes promotions in the AWS Console, features at re:Invent, and engagement via the AWS Account Manager network.
    • Goal: To regain trust by being transparent about the product's flaws.
    • Action: Publish a blog post, "We Heard You", openly acknowledging the performance and control issues reported by the community on Reddit and Hacker News.

Phase 2: Deliver & Communicate

Phase 3: Engage Power Users

    • Goal: To show, not just tell, users that we are fixing the problems.
    • Action: Announce each new control and flexibility feature with a clear message: "Control is Back."
    • Goal: To get high-quality feedback on our strategic features before a full launch.
    • Action: Launch an invite-only beta for AWS-Aware Execution, targeting AWS Community Builders and power users.

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Success Metrics

>60%

>60%

-50%

+30%

Weekly Active Trust

Total

Population

Control Adoption & Score

Mobile

Users

Critical Error Rate

Internet

Users

User Retention

Active

Users

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Thank

KIRO BY AWS

Presented by: Aayush Agrawal & JayaLaxmi

You