Amazon Q Business will no longer be open to new customers starting on July 31, 2026. If you would like to use the service, please sign up prior to July 30. For capabilities similar to Q Business, explore Amazon Quick. Learn more.

Amazon Q Business availability change

Overview

Amazon Q Business remains fully supported and AWS will continue to provide bug fixes and security updates for existing customers, however new feature requests will no longer be considered.

We recommend that customers migrate their Q Business applications and implement any new generative or agentic AI solutions on Amazon Quick for similar capabilities to Q Business and more advanced features for generative BI and agentic AI use cases. Quick is an AI assistant for work that brings all your data together—connecting Slack, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, CRMs, databases, and documents in one place. It learns what matters to you and your team, grounds every answer in your real business data, and goes beyond answers: scheduling, building deliverables, creating dashboards, and acting on your behalf.

Migration Guidance

Migration from AWS Q Business to Amazon Quick follows a phased approach, starting with the Bring Your Own Index (BYOI) capability, which allows you to bring your existing Q Business index to Quick without disrupting current operations. This approach allows you to move users and apps to Quick as fast as possible, enabling access to Quick's expanded capabilities – including Quick Flows for workflow automation, QuickSight integration for structured data analysis, Research for in-depth research and expert insights, and Spaces for unified knowledge management – and then migrate your data sources to the Quick Index over time if needed.

This migration guide provides AWS Q Business customers with a comprehensive, step-by-step pathway to transition their existing applications to Amazon Quick, including detailed workarounds for features that are not yet available in Quick.

Customers who use anonymous access and API integration of Q Business into custom applications should contact AWS Support to discuss custom approaches for migrating these applications.

Amazon Quick Features

Amazon Quick represents the next evolution of Amazon Q Business, providing a unified platform that seamlessly accesses company data from documents, enterprise applications, databases, data warehouses, and real-time internet information.

Amazon Quick includes several integrated capabilities: Quick Sight for interactive data visualization; Flows for intelligent workflow automation; Automate for streamlined business process automation; Quick Research for comprehensive data analysis; Spaces to aggregate files, dashboards, topics, knowledge bases; and Apps for interactive applications. Quick also includes mobile and desktop applications for access across any device and from any location.

Prerequisites and Planning

Before beginning migration, ensure your environment meets the following requirements and complete an inventory of your existing Q Business resources.

AWS Account and Region Requirements

Both your Amazon Q Business index and Amazon Quick instance must reside in the same AWS account and AWS Region. You must have administrator permissions in Amazon Quick. For IDC-based implementations, AWS IAM Identity Center must be enabled and configured, with both services authenticating through IAM Identity Center in the same region.

Identity Provider Assessment

Amazon Quick's BYOI feature to connect your existing Q Business Index supports two implementation methods. The IDC Implementation requires both Q Business and Quick to authenticate through IAM Identity Center in the same account and region. The Non-IDC Implementation supports native identities, AWS Managed Microsoft AD, and IAM federation, where all Amazon Quick users automatically receive access to connected indexes. Determine which method applies to your organization before proceeding.

Inventory Existing Q Business Resources

Use the AWS CLI to export your current Q Business configurations for planning purposes. Run the following commands to catalog your data sources:

# List all data sources in your Q Business application
aws qbusiness list-data-sources \
  --application-id <your-application-id> \
  --index-id <your-index-id>

# Get detailed configuration for each data source
aws qbusiness get-data-source \
  --application-id <your-application-id> \
  --index-id <your-index-id> \
  --data-source-id <your-data-source-id>
                

These commands retrieve your connector configurations, which you will reference during migration planning. Additionally, inventory your plugins, Q Apps, web experience customizations, guardrails, and document attribute configurations.

Migration

Step 1: Set up Quick

To subscribe to Quick:

Step 2: Connect your Q Business Index with BYOI

This step is optional but provides the fastest path to migrating your existing Q Business Index to Quick without the need to reconnect data sources and recreate the index in Quick. This does not affect your existing Q Business application in any way. If you prefer to start by setting up your connections natively in Quick, skip to step 2a below.

Implementation Steps: Sign in to the Amazon Quick console as an Admin or Admin Pro user, navigate to Knowledge bases, choose Create knowledge base, select Amazon Q Business as the data source, choose the Amazon Q Business index you want to use, provide a name and description, and choose Create. Your Q Business chat profile is replicated in Quick, allowing administrators and selected users to experience Quick while Q Business continues running in parallel.

Supported Identity Types: BYOI supports two authentication configurations. The IDC implementation requires both Amazon Q Business (using AWS_IAM_IDC) and Amazon Quick to authenticate through IAM Identity Center. The non-IDC implementation supports Amazon Q Business using AWS_QUICKSIGHT_IDP with Quick authenticating via native identities, AWS Managed Microsoft AD, or IAM federation. In an IDC implementation, access to the knowledge base is automatically granted only to users with access to the selected Q Business index, and additional users require admin configuration in both consoles. In a non-IDC implementation, all Amazon Quick users automatically receive access to connected Q Business indexes.

Limitations: Be aware of the following constraints when using BYOI. You can connect a maximum of two Amazon Q Business indexes per region, and this quota cannot be increased. Once indexes are selected and saved, they cannot be directly unselected. Amazon Q Business index knowledge bases cannot be modified like other Quick knowledge bases. Q Apps, Actions, and Amazon Q Business chat guardrails are not included in the BYOI capability. Only document types supported by Amazon Q Business are supported in the connected index.

Step 2a: Connect Native Data Sources Directly to Quick

Quick provides native integrations for both Knowledge Bases and Actions.

The console organizes integrations into separate categories based on their purpose. Use Knowledge to connect data sources for Q&A and insights. Use Connectors to set up action connectors that perform operations in external applications. The setup process adapts based on the integration you select, your subscription, and existing integrations.

When you set up an integration, the console guides you based on several factors:

The following examples show how different integrations guide you through different console setup processes.

Google Drive – Set up a knowledge base:

Google Drive – Set up an action connector:

See the Quick User Guide for integration-specific documentation.

Step 2b: Using MCP for Data Sources Without Native Integrations

When migrating from Q Business to Amazon Quick, you may find that some Q Business data source connectors do not have a direct native equivalent in Quick. Amazon Quick addresses this gap through Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that defines how AI applications communicate with external tools and data sources. MCP uses a client-server architecture where Amazon Quick acts as the MCP client, connecting to remote MCP servers that expose structured tools such as querying databases, calling APIs, or interacting with third-party services. Because MCP is an open standard, customers can connect to any compatible server without building custom integrations for each tool.

Setting Up MCP Integrations

Amazon Quick provides a 4-step console wizard for configuring MCP integrations. In the Amazon Quick console, choose Integrations, then Add, then select Model Context Protocol (MCP). Enter the integration name, description, and MCP server endpoint URL. Next, select the authentication method—user OAuth, service-to-service, or no authentication—and provide the appropriate credentials. Quick then auto-discovers and registers the available tools as actions. Finally, share the integration with other users as needed.

Validated MCP Integrations

Several services that lack native Quick connectors are available through validated MCP-based integrations. These include Visier for people analytics, HuggingFace for ML models and datasets, Intercom for customer messaging, Linear for project management, and PagerDuty Advance for incident response and SRE workflows. All validated MCP integrations support Chat Agents and Flows but do not support Knowledge Base indexing.

MCP Limitations

When planning your migration, be aware of the following MCP constraints: operations have a fixed 60-second timeout and will fail with an HTTP 424 error if exceeded; custom HTTP headers are not supported; tool lists remain static after initial registration, requiring you to delete and recreate the integration to pick up server-side tool changes; and step-up authorization is not supported. Additionally, MCP integrations provide action capabilities (querying, invoking APIs) but cannot be used as knowledge base data sources for document indexing.

Migration Recommendation

For Q Business customers using connectors without native Quick equivalents, the recommended approach is to first check whether a validated MCP integration exists for the target service. If one does not exist, evaluate whether the service provides an MCP server or whether you can deploy a custom MCP server that wraps the service's API. This approach allows you to maintain connectivity to all your enterprise data sources while benefiting from Quick's advanced capabilities.

Step 3: Identity and Access Control Migration

IDC Identity Migration

For organizations using IAM Identity Center, user migration is the most straightforward path. AWS deduplicates subscriptions across all Q Business applications sharing the same IAM Identity Center instance, charging each user only once for their highest subscription level. This same identity infrastructure carries forward into Quick, making the transition seamless for IDC-based deployments.

Non-IDC Identity Migration

Organizations using IAM Federation, native identities, or AWS Managed Microsoft AD face a more complex migration. The non-IDC implementation in Quick supports these authentication methods, and all Quick users automatically receive access to connected indexes. However, the mapping of individual user permissions requires manual scripting to replicate the granular access controls that existed in Q Business. In a non-IDC implementation, because all Amazon Quick users automatically receive access to connected Q Business indexes, you lose the per-user and per-group access distinctions that Q Business enforced at the index level. To restore granular access, you must segment content into separate knowledge bases and programmatically assign permissions at the knowledge base level within Quick Spaces.

The following example script demonstrates how to export user-to-data-source mappings from Q Business and generate corresponding Quick knowledge base permission assignments:

import boto3
import json

# Step 1: Export Q Business user/group ACL mappings
qbusiness = boto3.client('qbusiness')
quicksight = boto3.client('quicksight')

APPLICATION_ID = '<your-q-business-application-id>'
INDEX_ID = '<your-q-business-index-id>'
QUICK_ACCOUNT_ID = '<your-aws-account-id>'

# Retrieve all data sources and their associated access controls
data_sources = qbusiness.list_data_sources(
    applicationId=APPLICATION_ID,
    indexId=INDEX_ID
)['dataSources']

# Step 2: Build a mapping of data source -> authorized users/groups
access_map = {}
for ds in data_sources:
    ds_id = ds['dataSourceId']
    ds_name = ds['displayName']
    
    # List groups with access to this data source
    groups_response = qbusiness.list_groups(
        applicationId=APPLICATION_ID,
        indexId=INDEX_ID,
        dataSourceId=ds_id
    )
    access_map[ds_name] = {
        'data_source_id': ds_id,
        'groups': [g['groupName'] for g in groups_response.get('items', [])]
    }

print(json.dumps(access_map, indent=2))

# Step 3: Create Quick knowledge base permission assignments
# For each data source segment, assign the corresponding groups
# to the appropriate Quick Space/knowledge base
for ds_name, config in access_map.items():
    for group_name in config['groups']:
        # Use Quick APIs to grant group access to the corresponding
        # knowledge base that contains this data source's content
        print(f"Assigning group '{group_name}' access to "
              f"knowledge base for '{ds_name}'")
        
        # Example: Update knowledge base sharing in Quick
        # This maps to the Quick console action of sharing a
        # knowledge base with specific groups within a Space
        quicksight.update_folder_permissions(
            AwsAccountId=QUICK_ACCOUNT_ID,
            FolderId=f'kb-{ds_name.lower().replace(" ", "-")}',
            GrantPermissions=[{
                'Principal': f'arn:aws:quicksight:{QUICK_ACCOUNT_ID}:group/default/{group_name}',
                'Actions': [
                    'quicksight:DescribeFolder',
                    'quicksight:ListFolderMembers'
                ]
            }]
        )
                

This script illustrates the general pattern: extract the user and group access mappings from Q Business, then apply equivalent permissions at the knowledge base or Space level in Quick. Because Quick's Non-IDC mode grants blanket access to all connected indexes, the workaround is to organize content into multiple knowledge bases segmented by access role, then restrict each knowledge base's sharing permissions to the appropriate groups.

Document-Level ACL Migration

Amazon Quick supports document-level access control lists (ACLs) for S3, Confluence Cloud, SharePoint, and Google Drive knowledge bases. This significantly narrows the access control gap between Q Business and Quick. For S3 knowledge bases, Quick provides two ACL configuration methods: a global ACL configuration file that defines centralized folder-level permissions, and document-level metadata files that provide per-document ACL entries for faster updates. Each ACL entry supports Name (email for USER, group name for GROUP), Type (USER or GROUP), and Access (ALLOW or DENY) controls.

ACLs must be enabled at knowledge base creation time—this setting is permanent and cannot be changed after creation. During setup, you specify the global ACL file location (S3 path to acl.json) and optionally a metadata files folder location. All ACLs are resolved within the Quick namespace of the knowledge base creator.

Quick does not ingest documents that lack an associated ACL entry, adopting a stricter default posture. In contrast, Q Business grants all users access to S3 prefixes that do not appear in the ACL file. Organizations migrating from Q Business should ensure all documents have explicit ACL entries before enabling ACLs in Quick to avoid unintentional content exclusion.

For connectors where Quick does not yet support native ACL crawling, segment content into multiple knowledge bases organized by access level and assign team-level or role-level access to each knowledge base within Spaces.

Step 4: Migrating Q Apps to Quick Flows

Q Apps must be migrated to Quick Flows, as Q Apps are excluded from the BYOI capability. Follow these steps to migrate a Q App to a Quick Flow.

Some Q App features like forms are not yet available in Quick Flows. Amazon Quick will not be able to replicate these features during migration. For form-based Q Apps, consider using Quick's structured input capabilities or maintaining those specific Q Apps until form support is added.

Feature Gaps and Workarounds

Not all Q Business features are available in Quick. Guardrails and User Store are features that require workarounds in Quick. This section discusses those workarounds.

Post-Migration Validation and Cutover

Testing BYOI Responses

After connecting your Q Business index via BYOI, validate response quality by testing representative queries against both platforms. Compare citation accuracy, response completeness, and relevance. Note that guardrails configured in Q Business will not apply through BYOI, so verify that Quick's native content governance meets your requirements.

Cutover Checklist

Before disabling your Q Business application URL, confirm that all users have been successfully migrated and can authenticate to Quick, that response quality meets or exceeds Q Business baselines, that any Q Apps have been successfully recreated as Quick Flows, that document-level ACLs have been configured for applicable knowledge bases, and that MCP integrations are functioning for data sources without native connectors.

Summary

Migration from AWS Q Business to Amazon Quick is a strategic upgrade that provides access to unified structured and unstructured data analysis, advanced workflow automation through Quick Flows and Automate, expert-level insights through Research, and unified knowledge management through Spaces. The BYOI capability ensures a low-risk entry point that preserves your existing data ingestion investments.

For most customers, the recommended approach is to begin with BYOI immediately to evaluate Quick's capabilities in parallel with your existing Q Business deployment. Address feature gaps using the workarounds documented in this guide and plan your cutover as full feature parity is achieved.

Please contact AWS Support with any additional questions.