In a candid interview, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy has confronted the perception of the e-commerce giant lagging behind competitors like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) in the artificial intelligence race, presenting a compelling strategy.
What Happened: On Thursday, during an interview with CNBC, Jassy dismissed the notion that Amazon is falling behind competitors Microsoft and Google in the AI race. He sees the current perception as a temporary "hype cycle."
The Amazon CEO said that while their competitors focus on superficial AI applications, like OpenAI's chatGPT, true progress lies in deeper advancements.
"I think most people are focused on the applications, you know, things like ChatGPT brought everybody's awareness up, but I think of generative AI as having three macro layers," the CEO said.
Jassy further pointed to Amazon Web Services or AWS as a crucial catalyst for the company's AI strategy.
For the unversed, in April, AWS recently introduced Bedrock, a generative AI service that empowers clients to develop their own chatbots and image-generation services using language models from Amazon and startups.
Despite recent cost-cutting measures and layoffs, Jassy emphasized that AI remains a strategic investment for Amazon. He suggested that by reallocating resources and focusing on AI advancements, the e-commerce behemoth intends to stay ahead of the curve.
Why It's Important: OpenAI's chatGPT has almost single-handedly started an AI arms race amidst big tech companies. Several big tech companies are now hustling to keep up with the advancing tech.
For instance, Google plans to add Bard AI and short video clips to its search results, signaling the search giant's departure from the traditional "10 blue links" format that has made it the dominant search engine for decades.
However, while other tech giants have aggressively entered the AI arena, committing billions of dollars to secure their positions and avoid being left behind, Amazon's approach appears more relaxed and measured.