The simultaneity is worth pausing on. AWS and Microsoft each announced major forward-deployment initiatives within 48 hours of each other, both built around the same premise: AI adoption stalls without engineers embedded inside customer orgs co-building with them. Microsoft's version is larger — six times the headcount and 2.5x the capital commitment — but the strategic bet is identical. That both hyperscalers converged on this model at the same moment suggests it's becoming table stakes, not a differentiator. Enterprises that have been slow to move on AI now have vendor engineers showing up at their door. The pressure to have something worth collaborating on just went up.