AI vendors could also use free tokens as a way to lock in customers, Leaming said. Free tokens from AI vendors could incentivize companies to build processes and workflows around proprietary LLMs and agents. And as if to reinforce the effort, major AI vendors are now sending out engineers to deploy AI models at customer sites.
The engineers, better known as forward-deployed engineers, or FDEs, are more or less hired guns for AI deployments. They focus on helping customers roll out AI projects successfully.
FDEs can study and help set strategies, put battle plans in place, build agentic frameworks, and roll out AI in conjunction with customers’ own domain experts and engineers. They also evaluate AI models, resolve context and reasoning problems, and handle security issues.