Amazon, one of the world’s biggest internet-focused companies, has shifted its investments in recent months to emphasize artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services. During a call with analysts on Thursday, Brian Olsavsky, Chief Financial Officer for the e-commerce giant, outlined the decision to decrease expenditures in some of their logistics infrastructure and reallocate these resources to the further development of AI and its cloud system.
The company stated that it spent $58.3 billion in capital expenses throughout last year, which demonstrated its intentions to boost its “technology infrastructure”. In accordance, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy explained that the firm plans to invest a significant amount of time and money into developing large language models for generating AI-based tools. In addition, Jassy noted Amazon’s focus on building the “world’s best personal assistant” – a vision in which their voice assistant Alexa will be further fueled by an enhanced omni-language model.
It is clear that Amazon is aiming to be a frontrunner in terms of the development of existing AI services and the introduction of new ones. Following the findings laid out in the call, Amazon’s stock saw a 10% surge in after-hours trading, before its market value decreased as Jassy remarked that companies are being more “cautious in their spending in this uncertain time”. Nevertheless, their share price has risen by more than 25% so far this year.
From this, it can be seen that Amazon is an e-commerce giant that is actively investing in AI technology to develop large language models for its cloud services, with the ambition of having “the world’s best personal assistant”. At the same time, the company shows the importance of being mindful in terms of its expenditures during the current uncertain times. Through this, Amazon is sure to maintain its market value for years to come.
