Sometimes going virtual is better. Amazon Web Services Inc. normally attracts around 50,000 people to its annual re:Invent conference. But this year, virtual re:Invent has seen enrollment rocket to over half a million, with speeches and sessions streamed over three weeks instead of the usual four days.

The key takeaway was that Amazon is looking to go everywhere. But this means changing the company’s long-held slogan “the right tool for the right job.”

“I think you can alter that today to say it’s the right tool for the right job at the right time, and the right place that makes sense for you,” said Scott Mullins (pictured), managing director and head of worldwide financial services business development at AWS.

Mullins spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed announcements and new services from re:Invent, plus how the financial industry is pivoting to adapt to the demands of operating in a remote-access world. (* Disclosure below.)

AWS goes all-in on hybrid tools for customer choice

Many of the announcements at re:Invent were around hybrid cloud. And there were so many that attendees possibly missed some, according to Mullins. Amazon EKS Anywhere and Amazon ECS Anywhere allow customers to “put AWS container technology anywhere they would like to put it,” Mullins said. And 1U and 2U form factors in AWS Outposts offer industries, such as finance, the ability to install outposts in smaller spaces.

“All of these are giving customers the ability to choose how they want to deploy and peruse hybrid,” Mullins said.

Other announcements of interest to the finance and regulatory industry were around data management and governance. AWS Audit Manager enables continuous auditing of AWS usage for risk assessment and compliance management, while Cloud Audit Academy offers risk and compliance professionals training to audit clouds from an agnostic perspective.

“There are some very key announcements both from the standpoint of services, as well as additional layers of helping customers in the financial services and regulated industry use AWS services,” Mullins stated.

Finance reinvents itself for the post-COVID era

These announcements are important for the finance industry as it undergoes a change from “What’s my digital strategy” to “What are my digital capabilities,” according to Mullins. “It’s about what do I have the ability to do tomorrow? Because tomorrow is what really matters,” he said.

The finance industry wants “to give our customers experiences that are real-time and intelligent,” said Mullins, quoting Melanie Frank, managing vice president of technology at Capital One, who also spoke with theCUBE during AWS re:Invent.

That is impossible with legacy technology, which means the finance industry is forced to transform to handle the demands of customer-centric culture, Mullins pointed out. He also quoted Lori Beer, global chief information officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., who echoed Frank in her keynote, saying, “We’re trying to infuse analytics into everything we do at JPMorgan.”

“I think that is going to be the all-encompassing statement for what is happening in the financial services segment,” Mullins said. “You’re going to see more and more organizations coming out and talking about these strategic decisions to reinvent everything that they do to make the financial systems of the world work.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE