Amazon CEO says "every single" team is building generative AI

While Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI have been dominating the generative AI headlines, Amazon has looked unusually quiet from the sidelines. That quiet period is officially over.

During Amazon's Q2 2023 earnings call on Thursday, CEO Andy Jassy made it crystal clear that the company is going all in. In fact, he revealed that every single business unit inside Amazon is currently running multiple generative AI initiatives.

From AWS to Alexa, everyone gets an AI project

Jassy emphasized that generative AI is now at the absolute heart of what Amazon does. It is no longer just an AWS infrastructure story, but a massive company-wide investment.

According to Jassy, these internal projects split into two categories: driving operational efficiency and cost savings behind the scenes, and transforming the core customer experience across every product.

That includes the core Stores marketplace, AWS, advertising, entertainment, and all hardware devices. Jassy specifically called out Alexa, telling listeners they can just imagine what the company is cooking up for its voice assistant.

Clues pointing to September hardware updates

Consumers might not have to wait long to see the results. Amazon has a hardware device event scheduled for September 20th, where an upgraded, LLM-powered Alexa could make its debut. Back in April, Jassy had already teased that Amazon was building a more capable large language model specifically for Alexa.

Retail search is also getting an overhaul. Job listings earlier this year revealed that Amazon has been hiring engineers to build an interactive, conversational experience for Amazon Search.

Jassy was not the only big tech leader talking up AI this week. Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that AI and machine learning are virtually embedded in every product the company builds. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai called the Search Generative Experience the next major evolution in search, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined new creative tools and AI agents powered by LLaMA.

Why it matters

For everyday consumers, this means the often frustrating, command-based Alexa sitting on your kitchen counter might finally get the conversational brain transplant it desperately needs. Shopping on Amazon could also shift from scrolling through endless sponsored links to chatting with a knowledgeable assistant. However, none of this is live yet, so there is nothing to try until Amazon actually ships updates, potentially starting at the September 20th event.

For the tech industry, Jassy's comments are a direct answer to critics who claimed Amazon fell behind in the generative AI race. While rivals rushed out consumer chatbots, Amazon seemed content selling cloud compute. This call signals that Amazon views generative AI not merely as AWS infrastructure revenue, but as the foundational interface for all of its future consumer touchpoints.

We think Amazon's approach is strategically smart: it does not need to build a new audience for a standalone chatbot because it already controls massive distribution through millions of Echo devices and the world's largest online storefront. The main risk, however, is execution. When every single team is building AI at the same time, companies often end up shipping disjointed features rather than cohesive, game-changing user experiences.