The growth of generative artificial intelligence businesses is surprising even the tech industry’s most seasoned executives.
Amazon’s (AMZN) AI business is growing three times as fast as its cloud business did at a comparable stage of evolution, CEO Andy Jassy said on a conference call with analysts Thursday. “And we thought AWS grew pretty quickly,” Jassy added, referring to the Amazon Web Services cloud-computing division he led before becoming CEO in 2021.
Amazon on Thursday topped Wall Street’s estimates with its third-quarter earnings. Cloud revenue grew 19% to more than $27 billion. Sales at the unit have accelerated this year amid surging demand for AI. Amazon’s AI business, which Jassy said is already growing by triple-digit percentages, could grow even faster once the company has the infrastructure to support booming demand, the CEO said.
“Pretty much everyone today has less capacity than they have demand for,” Jassy said.
Jassy’s comments echoed those of Microsoft executiveswho, on their company’s …