Artificial intelligence, not rockets, is where Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos seems to be putting his money.
Amazon’s chief executive Andy Jassy said at the release of the company’s third-quarter financial results that the Amazon Web Services (AWS) team “continues to innovate and deliver at a rapid clip”.
It may be known mainly as a delivery service, but Amazon also produces custom AI chips, operates Amazon Bedrock as a flexible way to build and deploy generative AI applications, and operates ‘coding companion’ CodeWhisperer.
Jassy described its AI offering as the equivalent of “an experienced engineer who understands all of their proprietary code” to help customers achieve their objectives.
He said adidas, Booking.com, GoDaddy, LexisNexis, Merck, Royal Philips, and United Airlines are all starting to run generative AI ‘workloads’ on the AWS platform.
Jassy said Amazon was focussed on ‘generative AI’, the use of machine learning to generate text or other media.
With any rival yet to reinvent the wheel of ChatGPT, that technology has limitations.
Amazon is doubling down on utilising its technology to address carbon emissions, professional services needs, upgrading its own offerings like Alexa and television channel Amazon Freevee, and even helping tackle financial crime.
Whether it will be a nice-to-have element for service providers or an essential function, remains to be seen.
BMW Group has adopted Amazon’s web platform to power its automated driving, using its existing cloud data hub hosted by AWS, combined with its machine learning capabilities and storage to accelerate delivery.
NatWest has also expanded its partnership with the company to co-create AI products using Amazon Bedrock for its financial customers.
Occidental, an energy company, will use Amazon’s cloud services to help put in place systems that could enable it to record and capture a million metric tons of carbon per year.
Amazon Web Services is also collaborating with the likes of PwC on using the cloud and analytics options for climate reporting.
Another professional services firm, Genpact, will integrate its cloud-based financial crime suite with Amazon Bedrock to tackle financial crime.
Amazon is also looking further overseas. For Abdul Latif Jameel, it will help develop generative AI applications that will enable car manufacturers to provide digital showrooms. South Korean gaming developer NCSOFT is meanwhile launching new language models on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart.
The tech company recently launched an AI-powered feature that lets shoppers in its US store determine what customers are saying about products.
It has also augmented Alexa with custom-built AI for voice interactions that allows users to make ambiguous and multiple requests, making the user experience more ‘intuitive’.
Users will be able to ask open-ended questions about its television services, including Amazon Frevee, as well as other channels like Disney+ and MGM+, Hulu, Peacock and STARZ, and use its AI Art feature on Fire TV devices.
Amazon has introduced a new built-in smart home hub, Echo Show 8, that it claims processes customer home requests 40% faster than previous models.
Whether or not it can directly compete with the likes of Microsoft’s ChatGPT, now synonymous with machine learning, or even the so-called ‘ChatGPT killers’ in its wake announced by Google (Bard), Meta (LLaMA), and Apple (Apple GPT), seems doubtful.
Its focus on TV, smart homes, and carbon emissions shows Amazon is going for the business client win.
While interesting, it probably won't yet unseat Nvidia’s innovation in hardware that allowed OpenAI to train ChatGPT.
Amazon believes net sales will grow up to 12% in the fourth quarter compared to last year, after bringing on board a raft of new clients, and that operating income will quadruple to up to US$11 billion.
Sales rose 13% to US$143 billion in the third quarter.