Latest news with #AmazonCEO
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon may bring ads to Alexa+ in least surprising move ever
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Up until now Amazon has mostly avoided stuffing Alexa with ads, but according to a report from Mashable, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy broached the idea of delivering ads in Alexa Plus during the company's recent earnings call. Alexa Plus is the company's premium AI assistant that is supposed to be more naturally conversational than the previous Alexa. Jassy reportedly said that there is a "significant financial opportunity" in delivering ads via Alexa Plus. "I think over time, there will be opportunities, you know, as people are engaging in more multi-turn conversations to have advertising play a role — to help people find discovery and also as a lever to drive revenue," Jassy said, as found in the earnings call transcript. What is Alexa+? The new Alexa, introduced in February, has "enhanced" conversational abilities that are meant to put it on other AI assistants like Google's Gemini or ChatGPT. With improved memory its supposed to remember your details and help with managing tasks like booking tables for date night or buying groceries. Currently, Amazon offers a $19.99 a month subscription for non-Prime members. Prime subscribers, which costs $14.99 a month or $139 annually, can get Alexa+ for free Many Amazon devices are Alexa+ capable, though not all. However, Alexa has largely been an ad-free experience for the last decade since it was introduced. Perhaps it's not too surprising that Amazon would consider adding some kind of revenue procuring element to its AI assistant. The company has struggled for years to upgrade Alexa as other AI assistants surpassed Amazon who introduced chatbot assistants to the market. What kind of Alexa+ ads are we talking about? Largely, integrating ads is a revenue ploy to recoup some of the billions Amazon has burned in trying to turn its smart assistant around. Both Google and OpenAI have explored putting ads in Gemini and ChatGPT. OpenAI teased the idea in December of 2024 though the company stepped back from the idea in the same sentence. Amazon has not officially made moves to add commercials to Alexa+ conversations, but Jassy framed the idea as helpful. It would supposedly assist you in finding products that you might want to buy. With no set plans, it's worth keeping an eye on Alexa+ to see how or if Amazon actually follows through with Jassy's idea and how obtrusive they'll become. Hopefully they'll be skippable at the very least. More from Tom's Guide What is Amazon Prime? Everything you need to know Over 200 million Amazon Prime customers warned about scammers trying to steal their accounts — how to stay safe Amazon-backed Showrunner launches 'Netflix of AI' platform — and you can star in your own show
Yahoo
03-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon CEO: Tariffs not yet driving price hikes
You can find original article here Supermarketnews. Subscribe to our free daily Supermarketnews newsletter. Amazon stock took a nosedive Thursday, despite beating analyst expectations following the release of its Q2 earnings report. Wall Street analysts pinned the roughly 8% decline in the retail giant's stock value to its projections on operating income for the third quarter. Tip Ranks reported that Amazon's $32.2 billion spend on AI infrastructure in Q2, up 83% year over year, exceeded analyst expectations, driving the hit to its stock value. 'Also, this exceeded analyst expectations of $26.4 billion, which raised concerns about near-term cash flow and margin pressure,' according to the report. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company's retail operation remains strong and touted Amazon's move to grow its online perishables sales business. 'We started expanding our very successful perishables pilot, where we offer customers perishables at the point of purchase when they're ordering other items that will be delivered same-day from our same-day fulfillment nodes,' he said. 'We're seeing strong customer adoption as 75% of customers who've used the service this year are first-time shoppers of perishables on Amazon.' He added that 20% of customers who used the service returned multiple times within the first month. Jassy also noted that this year's Prime Day sale, which ran from July 8-10, was the retail giant's biggest ever. On the impact of Trump administration tariffs on the business, Jassy said Amazon has yet to see diminishing demand; adding that the future is impossible to predict. 'There continues to be a lot of noise about the impact of tariffs will have on retail prices and consumption. Much of it, thus far, has been wrong and misreported,' he said. 'As we said before, it's impossible to know what will happen. 'Where will tariffs finally settle—especially China? What happens when we deplete the inventory we forward bought and that our selling partners forward deployed in advance of the tariffs going into effect? If costs end up being higher, who will absorb them? But what we can share is what we've seen thus far, which is that through the first half of the year, we haven't yet seen diminishing demand or prices meaningfully appreciating.' Despite the stock dip, the Seattle-based retail powerhouse exceeded analyst expectations on every other metric, according to Earnings Whispers. Amazon beat consensus earnings estimates of $1.33 per share on revenue of $162.17 billion, reporting $1.68 per share on revenue of $167.7 billion, up 12% year over year. The retailer and tech company also offered revenue projections of $174 billion to $179.5 billion for the third quarter, again beating analyst consensus estimates of $172.9 billion. While the earnings call primarily focused on its cloud computing and online retail business, Amazon reported 7% year-over-year growth in its physical store sales, which returned $5.6 billion for the quarter. Its net sales jumped 13% year over year to $167.7 billion in Q2. In North America, sales were up 11% year over year to $100.1 billion. Net income reached $18.2 billion in the second quarter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Verge
01-08-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Amazon eyes ads and upcharges for Alexa Plus
In the week's least surprising news, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed that the company is exploring ways to bring ads to Alexa Plus, its new generative-AI-powered voice assistant. During a conference call following the company's second-quarter earnings report, Jassy said that 'there will be opportunities, as people are engaging in more multiturn conversations [with Alexa Plus], to have advertising play a role to help people find discovery, and also as a lever to drive revenue.' Basically, people will talk more to Alexa, so there will be more ways to push ads at them. He also hinted that Alexa Plus, which is currently free for Prime members but will cost $19.99 a month without Prime, could one day cost more. 'As we keep adding functionality [there] could be some sort of subscription element beyond what there is today,' he said. Considering Amazon's Devices & Services division, which includes Alexa and Echo, has reportedly struggled to make money, Jassy is looking for ways to make its hot new thing, Alexa Plus, more profitable. Charging non-Prime members $20 a month may sound like one way. But who's going to pay $20 when you can spend $15 for Prime and get Alexa Plus, plus all the Prime benefits? Advertising is the obvious path, as ads already exist on Amazon Echo devices with regular Alexa on board. These include full-screen ones on Echo Show smart displays that appear randomly and can't be opted out of. Another way Alexa pushes ads is with its 'By the way' feature, which tacks on suggestions to a response after you've asked something. These often involve encouraging you to buy something from Amazon. When Amazon announced Alexa Plus back in February, I asked head of Devices & Services Panos Panay if 'By the way' and full-screen ads would stick around. 'I don't think a lot of that changes,' he said, adding that advertising models on devices like Echos are designed to keep the costs down for customers. I've been testing Alexa Plus for a few weeks now and haven't seen any ads or received any 'By the ways.' But the assistant is still in an Early Access beta phase, and it sounds like the plan is that this new Alexa will come with new ways to push ads. But I really wish it wasn't. In terms of what that might look like, back in 2022, Amazon said it had developed a Customers Ask Alexa feature that would allow brands to submit their own answers to questions people asked Alexa, such as 'How can I remove pet hair from my carpet?' Alexa Plus, with its chattier, more helpful persona, would be an ideal platform to deliver this type of sponsored result. But that won't cut it if Amazon is going to succeed in making Alexa Plus the 'World's best personal assistant,' which is Jassy's stated goal. Why would anyone choose to use an assistant that is getting paid to push specific products? One of those higher tiers for Alexa Plus Jassy hinted at could be an ad-free version, as TechCrunch first speculated. Amazon did exactly this with Prime Video, creating a higher price, ad-free tier and booting everyone else to ads. But either way, Alexa will really have to prove its worth if we're going to pay for its new capabilities. Based on my initial testing of Alexa Plus, it's not at a point where I can delegate my daily tasks and chores to it, as I would do if I could ever afford to hire a real personal assistant. But the potential is there. There's no doubt that generative AI is going to transform how we use digital voice assistants, and Amazon has a head start. It has actually launched its revamped assistant with more conversational natural language abilities, something neither Apple nor Google seems close to doing. Alexa Plus is also one of the few generative AI-powered services that can take actions in real life. Whether people will be willing to pay for AI features is still being tested. OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others currently charge for different tiers of access to their more advanced AI-chatbot tools. As an Alexa user for many years, I'd consider paying for a really good Alexa that does what I ask without fail, has all the features Amazon has promised are coming, and never shows me an ad. However, what I know for sure that I don't want, is a chattier AI pushing products at me in my home. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All AI Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. 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Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Andy Jassy says Amazon has chosen to 'embrace' AI, promising it ‘will make all our teammates' jobs more enjoyable'
Andy Jassy, who sent shockwaves through the jobs market as one of the first major chief executives to say that 'AI will mean fewer jobs,' sounded a different tone on the earnings call accompanying Amazon's earnings on July 31. He reiterated his view that artificial intelligence (AI) will be a transformative force, saying it 'is going to change very substantially the way we work' and emphasizing sweeping impacts already under way. It's changing the way Amazon does coding, finance, all sorts of things, he said: 'really the way we do business process automation, the way we do customer service.' But then he pivoted. Jassy said AI 'will make all our teammates' jobs more enjoyable,' freeing them up from having to do the 'rote' functions that could not previously be automated. Companies have a choice in the AI revolution, he added: they can embrace the change that's happening and help shape the new era, 'or you can wish it away and have it shape you.' He said he has worked to make clear, internally and externally, that Amazon will embrace this moment. 'Much more advanced' While AI's promise and pitfalls have dominated tech headlines for the past two years, Jassy's comments detailed concrete examples of how Amazon is rapidly embedding advanced AI into both its internal workflows and customer-facing services. He highlighted the company's investments in generative AI agents that can assist with—or even independently perform—complex coding tasks. 'Coding agents, having AI do a lot of the coding for us … allows our teammates to start from a much more advanced starting spot,' Jassy explained. This philosophy of combining human creativity with AI-powered efficiency is reshaping other vital departments as well. In research and finance, Jassy described AI tools that can quickly synthesize vast quantities of information or flag anomalies in financial data, freeing up skilled employees for strategic work. Jassy also spotlighted AI's growing influence in Amazon's expansive call center and customer service operations. He pointed to services like AWS Connect—the company's cloud-based call center solution—which now has deep AI integrations for more natural customer interactions and automated issue resolution. Jassy's transformative outlook Jassy has been emphasizing the increasing impact of AI for several months now, for instance suggesting that employees attend AI trainings while promising investors that AI will make them 'very happy' down the road. Amazon had delivered strong earnings earlier on July 31, yet investors sent the stock down roughly 7% in post-market trading with investors concerned about trade headwinds and Amazon's long-term spending plans. Jassy told analysts on the call that, with regard to the impact of tariffs through the first half of the year, 'we haven't yet seen diminishing demand, nor prices meaningfully appreciating.' For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
New York Times
31-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Amazon Reports $18.2 Billion in Profit Amid Strong Retail Demand
Despite uncertainty over President Trump's trade war, Amazon on Thursday reported surprising resilience among the consumers who drive its retail business. But profit margins tightened at the cloud computing services that the e-commerce giant offers corporate customers. Overall, sales from April through June rose to $$167.7 billion, 13 percent more than the same period a year earlier. Profit was $18.2 billion, up 35 percent. For the current quarter, which ends in September, Amazon told investors to expect sales of $174 billion to $179.5 billion, and operating profits between $15.5 and $20.5 billion. The guidance showed confidence that customers will keep spending, but reflected a broad range of how much it will cost to serve them. 'Our conviction that A.I. will change every customer experience is starting to play out,' Andy Jassy, Amazon's chief executive, said in a statement. Amazon, along with its peers in Big Tech, has been on a frantic spree to develop data centers, massive remote buildings packed with servers that power cloud computing and artificial intelligence. In May, Mr. Jassy told investors that Amazon could have sold more cloud services if it had more data centers, which the company was building more rapidly. On Thursday, Amazon reported that it spent more than $31 billion on capital expenses in the last quarter, about twice as much as a year earlier. Amazon's cloud services posted $30.9 billion in sales, up 17.5 percent. But the division reported lower profit margins than in recent quarters, producing $10.2 billion in operating income. It accounted for just over half of the company's operating profit. In its e-commerce and retail business, the number of items sold grew 12 percent, a sign that consumers did not slow their spending despite tariffs and a less certain economy. Online sales of products by Amazon directly to customers grew 11 percent, to $61.5 billion. The sales of services to sellers on Amazon's marketplace, such as listing and fulfillment, grew 11 percent to $40.3 billion. In Amazon's physical stores, such as Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh, sales grew 7 percent to $5.6 billion. Operating profit in its North America retail business grew 48 percent, to $7.5 billion. Some of that comes from growth one of its most profitable businesses: selling advertising. Ad sales grew 23 percent to $15.7 billion. Amazon has also worked to make its operations more efficient by redesigning how it moves and stores products across its more than 1,000 U.S. warehouses. By bringing the right products closer to customers, Amazon can make them less costly and quicker to deliver, which in turn boosts sales. It has also kept costs down by not hiring as much, even as its business has grown. The company had 1.546 million employees, up just 1 percent from a year earlier.
