alt Hacker NewsThis article is so confusing. For example, they say they tried the Strands Decider model and dismissed it for Gemma, then they continue to call the model they used Strands Decider? Did I miss something?
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As I understand it, Strands is basically an SDK (created by AWS then open sourced), so every solution is potentially custom.
Strands Decider is a decision model. maybe similar to Jev, that while based on an LLM is not one - it has a different "head" since it's not build to generate. The original prototype was based on (a modified) Qwen 3.5 2B, and the production version is based on Gemma 4 since that proved to be more accurate.
IMO the real news here is the big picture, not the details. Here's a high volume real world use case where a large expensive LLM (Claude Sonnet 4.6) has been replaced by a tiny 2B bespoke decision model.
Amazon is such a huge company that I'd guess they have internal business flow automation opportunities matching those of many other companies, so it's interesting to see this come out of AWS. Just as AWS itself was created by Amazon releasing something they has originally built for themselves, I wonder if we'll see more of these optimized real-world AI solutions coming out of Amazon/AWS/Strands?
Not exactly sure, but as I understand this version of Strands is Gemma fine tuned for decision.
It appears they just re-label other people’s models and call it a decision model.
This article explains it better (and rather colorfully)
https://strandsagents.com/blog/introducing-strands-decider/
They lopped the head off an existing Qwen or Gemma model and used its torso with their new head.