After a Prime Day shopping event that Amazon touted as record-breaking, the focus for Amazon stock will shift this week back to the company's cloud business and generative artificial intelligence initiatives. The company's Amazon Web Services division is hosting a summit in New York Wednesday.
While smaller than the re:Invent conference Amazon will host in Las Vegas in December, the tech giant has previously used its summer summit in New York to announced new products and other updates. Wall Street analysts will be watching for updates on its AI offerings. Amazon is the leading cloud provider but is in an intense battle with Microsoft, Alphabet and Oracle to win AI-related business.
The focus this year will likely be on agentic AI as Monness, Crespi, Hardt analyst Brian White told clients in a research note Monday. Agentic AI broadly refers to online tools that can go beyond the capability of chatbots by taking actions online, such as purchasing a product or booking a reservation.
Amazon plans to launch a marketplace where startups can offer AI agents to enterprises using AWS, according to a TechCrunch report Thursday. The company would reportedly partner with AI startup Anthropic on the efforts.
A webpage from AWS promoting the event says attendees will be "first to hear exciting announcements and launches in agentic AI that will shape the future of business transformation."
Amazon stock added a fraction to close at 225.69 on the stock market today.
Amazon's AI Agent Plans
Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of AWS Agentic AI, will lead a keynote presentation Wednesday.
Amazon Web Services named Sivasubramanian as leader of a new group focused on AI agents in March. AWS Chief Executive Matt Garman reportedly said agentic AI has the "potential to be the next multibillion business for AWS," in an email announcing the new group.
AI agent deployment has been gaining momentum this year, as Monness, Crespi, Hardt's White told clients Monday.
"Amazon's Alexa+ is an example of a consumer-focused AI agent," White wrote. "Moreover, AWS supports the development of AI agents by customers with offerings across all three layers of the AI stack, including services such as Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Sagemaker, and Amazon Q."
The Monness, Crespi, Hardt analyst reiterated a buy call with a target price of 265.
"We believe Amazon will continue to capitalize on the cloud, expand its digital ad business, innovate with gen AI, and realize efficiencies from a regional fulfillment network," White wrote to clients Monday. "However, regulatory headwinds persist and the macro is treacherous."
Amazon Stock: Biggest Prime Day On Record
Amazon hosted its Prime Day online deals event from Tuesday through Friday last week. The company said in a news release Saturday that Prime Day was "bigger than any previous four-day period that included a Prime Day event." The e-commerce giant doubled the length of the event this year.
Shoppers spent just over $24 billion total over the four days across U.S. retail websites, according to estimates from Adobe. That marked a 30% year-over-year increase.
The consumer research firm Numerator, meanwhile, estimates that about 52,800 households shopped Amazon during Prime Day, with an average order size of $53.34.
Amazon closed last week a fraction higher overall. Shares have traded tightly over the past three weeks. Amazon stock is up about 3% year to date, trailing a 6% gain for the S&P 500. But shares have been performing better in the past two months, bouncing back from a steep spring slump after the U.S. eased tariffs on Chinese goods.
The tech giant is expected to report second-quarter results later this month.
The IBD Stock Checkup tool, meanwhile, shows Amazon stock holds an IBD Composite Rating of 93 out of a best-possible 99. The score combines five separate proprietary ratings into one rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.
