- In today’s CEO Daily: Jason Del Rey on the leadership lessons from Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting.
- The big story: OpenAI is acquiring io, an AI product startup founded by the creator of the iPhone.
- The markets: Ticking down.
- Analyst notes from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. This is Jason Del Rey, Fortune’s tech correspondent, covering for Diane while she’s traveling.
Yesterday, I listened to Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting, which was about as unexciting as any big, powerful company could hope for. Investors voted down all shareholder proposals, which called for more oversight over or transparency from the tech titan.
But I did find it noteworthy that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy used this forum as another opportunity to build trust in Amazon’s heavy AI spending spree, as I wrote yesterday. The tech giant is unleashing around $100 billion in capital expenditures this year, primarily focused on this space, compared to $78 billion in 2024. And the way he’s explaining and justifying those costs to stakeholders is something that other chief executives could potentially learn from.
The CEO cited gen AI uses across two realms: “cost avoidance and productivity” and “altogether new customer experiences.” In the first bucket, he referenced the company’s existing core customer service chatbot, which was rearchitected using gen AI, as well as gen AI tools that help Amazon sellers create new listings quicker, and ones that help the company forecast customer demand for inventory more accurately. In the second bucket, Jassy breezed through a bevy of customer-facing products, from the Rufus shopping assistant to the new Alexa Plus voice assistant, which the company began rolling out to a limited customer base last month.
Jassy’s continued focus on explaining the company’s AI bets publicly—both here as well as recently on the company’s earnings calls and at company events for the press and partners—might sound repetitive for ultra-close observers of the company like me.
But the consistency seems like a smart move for a CEO with so many stakeholders to worry about—shareholders, shopping customers, AWS customers, sellers, corporate and front-line employees, and potential talent as well.
Obviously the advantage Jassy has, that many other CEOs don’t, is a bevy of consumer-facing gen AI-powered products that are easier for the general public, and internal employee base, to focus on rather than some of the thornier—maybe more mainstream use cases initially being adopted by other companies.
That’s to say for every Rufus or Alexa Plus or AI-powered customer review summary box that Jassy can point to, many smaller companies are staring down initial gen AI use cases that focus on replacing human work or, at a minimum, reducing the amount of work necessary for human staff—with workforce reduction a natural result if not a goal. And messaging that to the public is a much trickier task.
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Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
