Amazon posted a blowout Q2, with net sales up 11%, profit doubled from 2022, analysts cheering and an upgraded fulfillment plan refocused on same-day delivery. But Amazon still needs to find ways to improve a grocery business that is getting failing marks from industry observers. AWS growth continues to slow, and management said GenAI won’t contribute meaningfully in the near term.
The Biden administration has secured voluntary commitments from executives at seven technology companies that they would take steps to ensure safe development and deployment of generative AI systems, in response to various concerns that have been raised since ChatGPT’s release last fall. The commitments include calls for security testing and watermarking content produced by AI.
While it’s been widely reported that Federal Trade Commission head Lina Kahn is planning to drop a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, analysts at Baird argue in a research note that the move would be wrong-headed because the company’s success is based on innovation and investment, not monopolistic practices. The FTC has already accused Amazon of duping millions into signing up for Prime.
Generative AI, better known by the OpenAI version called ChatGPT in Microsoft’s Bing search engine, is suddenly everywhere all at once, shaking up whole industries and offering to optimize pretty much every single business function and solve all your problems. But what’s it all about? Join our webinar on June 8 to find out.
Google is pulling out all the stops to incorporate generative AI across its ecosystem, in an effort to demonstrate to the world that the search giant is a leader and not a follower when it comes to the biggest disruptive technology to hit the business world in decades. A handful of new products announced at Google I/O enable a range of capabilities built on its Vertex AI generative engine.
Google saw a 50%-plus increase in search traffic in December to its “popular products” integrations, where shoppers can view and filter results with a variety of product details in an ecommerce-friendly carousel display, as it works to claw back the enormous flow of checkouts to dominant Amazon. Google is leveraging aggregated shopping feeds based on structured product data from merchants.
It was quite a week in the ever-expanding universe of generative AI, as the arms race among tech titans escalates, new solutions proliferate and more retailers jump in with both feet. From Elon Musk to Google, Amazon, Walmart and Levi Strauss, more companies are moving beyond the experimentation stage and planting a flag as a wide range of applications hit the market.
While cryptocurrency can be volatile, for merchants who sell to the tech industry, especially if they deal in blockchain-related technology, and those who want to reach tech-savvy customers looking for the latest digital payment options, accepting cryptocurrency payments can be a great way to build a loyal customer base.
Descope, a company touting a low-code, password-less authentication solution, has raised $53 million in a seed round, looking to tackle the issue of costly password fraud as well as the consumer friction that comes both at account creation and with tracking numerous user IDs and passwords.
Amazon reported a mix bag of results for its fourth quarter and year, with ad revenue up but ecommerce sales down, and even the vaunted Amazon Web Services, the company’s profit driver for years, fell short of expectations in what executives repeatedly called an “uncertain economy.”