In his annual year-end letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy highlighted the significance of generative artificial intelligence not just for the company’s profits but the entire technological landscape.
Likening its impact to that of the advent of the cloud, Jassy’s sentiments reflect a growing recognition of the power of GenAI among tech workers.
The news came as the company reported 12% year-on-year revenue growth to a staggering $575 billion.
AWS is thankful for generative AI
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud division that manages the generative AI side of operations, reported slightly higher revenue growth of 13% year over year. The division’s $91 billion income accounted for 15.8% of the company’s accounts.
In the letter, Jassy stated: “Generative AI may be the largest technology transformation since the cloud (which itself, is still in the early stages), and perhaps since the Internet.”
Jassy also commented on GenAI’s comparative simplicity, sharing that while moving from on-prem to the cloud requires a large migration effort, generative AI can be layered on top of existing work in the cloud.
He added: “The amount of societal and business benefit from the solutions that will be possible will astound us all.”
The journey towards harnessing generative AI’s full potential isn’t without its challenges, though. Jassy acknowledged the technology’s appetite for computing resources, software services, and infrastructure.
Looking ahead, the CEO touched upon the importance of collaboration and diversity in the AI landscape, adding that “the vast majority [of GenAI applications] will ultimately be built by other companies.”
Regarding the cloud computing business, the company’s last full financial year started off with widespread cost-reducing efforts, including layoffs, but by the end, things started to look up thanks to investments in in-house components.
More broadly, though, Amazon’s CEO stated that the company is “not done lowering our cost to serve,” indicating that further measures of efficiency, including layoffs, could be on the cards. Amazon’s layoffs in the past three months have only affected a few hundred, making them significantly smaller than previous efforts.
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