AWS just dropped Nova 2 at re:Invent 2025, and one model breaks new ground. While competitors fumble between reasoning and generation, Amazon’s Nova 2 Omni does both in a single unified model. It’s the industry’s first AI that can watch a video, reason about the content, and generate an image response without switching models. Available now on AWS Bedrock for Lite and Sonic variants, with Pro and Omni in preview.
Nova 2 Omni: The Industry’s First Unified Multimodal Model
Here’s what makes Nova 2 Omni different. GPT-4o generates multimodal content from text. Gemini reasons across multimodal inputs. Nova 2 Omni does both: it processes text, images, video, and speech while generating both text and images. No model switching, no API stitching, no separate pipelines.
The practical value? Build an agent that watches a product demo video, understands the features, and generates a marketing image – all in one model. Or create a system that analyzes customer support calls (speech), reasons about the issues, and produces visual troubleshooting guides. This unified approach unlocks agentic workflows that competitors can’t match without cobbling together multiple models.
Nova 2 Omni ranks second on the MMAU leaderboard and is currently in preview with early access for Nova Forge customers. If you’re building agents that need to reason across modalities and generate visual responses, this is the model to watch.
Four Models, Four Use Cases
AWS didn’t just launch Omni. The Nova 2 family includes four models, each targeting specific workloads:
Nova 2 Lite handles everyday reasoning at industry-leading price performance. It processes text, images, and videos to generate text, with a one million token context window and extended thinking with adjustable reasoning budgets. Available now on Bedrock, it beats Claude Haiku 4.5 on 13 out of 15 benchmarks.
Nova 2 Pro is Amazon’s most intelligent model, built for agentic coding, long-range planning, and complex problem-solving. It processes text, images, videos, and speech, handling up to 750,000 words or hours of audio in a single prompt. Currently in preview for Nova Forge customers.
Nova 2 Sonic delivers real-time speech-to-speech conversations with support for seven languages. Its polyglot voices can switch between languages mid-conversation. Available now on Bedrock, it’s designed for conversational AI that feels natural, not robotic.
This isn’t a one-size-fits-all play. Pick the model that matches your workload: Lite for cost-effective reasoning, Pro for complex agents, Sonic for voice interfaces, Omni for unified multimodal workflows.
AWS Bets Big on AI Agents
AWS CEO Matt Garman made the stakes clear at re:Invent: “This change is going to have as much impact on your business as the Internet or the cloud. I believe that in the future, there’s going to be billions of agents inside of every company, across every industry.”
The distinction matters. AI assistants answer questions and provide help. AI agents take autonomous action and execute multi-step workflows. Nova 2 Pro is designed specifically for agentic coding and long-range planning, with extended thinking capabilities and reasoning budgets that let developers balance speed, intelligence, and cost.
Real-world validation is already here. Nova Act, powered by Nova 2 Lite, achieves 90 percent reliability for browser automation. Hertz accelerated software delivery by 5x using automated testing. Sola Systems automates hundreds of thousands of workflows per month. 1Password simplified login automation across hundreds of websites with a single prompt. These aren’t demos – they’re production deployments showing material business returns.
Nova Forge: $100K Custom Models
Nova Forge lets enterprises build custom frontier models for $100,000 per year. You get access to pre-trained, mid-trained, or post-trained Nova checkpoints, blend your proprietary data with Amazon’s curated training datasets, and deploy as private models on Bedrock.
Is this democratizing or gatekeeping? $100K sounds expensive until you compare alternatives. Hiring an AI research team costs $500K to $2M annually. Training a frontier model from scratch runs $10M to $100M in compute alone. OpenAI and Anthropic enterprise partnerships often require $1M+ commitments. For mid-market companies serious about custom AI, $100K is actually a bargain.
The bonus: Nova Forge customers get early access to Nova 2 Pro and Omni, both currently in preview. If you’re building proprietary AI applications and need custom models, this is the most accessible path to frontier capabilities.
What This Means for Developers
Nova 2 Lite and Sonic are available now on AWS Bedrock. Pro and Omni are in preview for Nova Forge customers. If you’re building on AWS, start with Lite for everyday workloads. It’s cost-effective, fast, and beats competitors on price-performance benchmarks.
The bigger shift is strategic. AWS is betting on agents, not assistants. Garman’s vision of billions of agents inside every company isn’t hyperbole – it’s backed by production deployments and material ROI. If you’re still building chatbots, you’re already behind. Start thinking about autonomous workflows, multi-step reasoning, and agentic coding.
Nova 2 Omni’s unified multimodal reasoning and generation is genuinely groundbreaking. GPT-4o and Gemini 2.5 Pro are strong competitors, but neither offers reasoning and generation in a single model. For developers on AWS Bedrock, Nova 2 is worth serious evaluation. The agent revolution is here – and it’s running on Nova.
Get started with Amazon Nova on AWS Bedrock or explore code examples on GitHub. For deeper analysis, read TechCrunch’s coverage of the announcement.
