Wall Street Is Rewarding AI Results, Not Just AI Spending

Wall Street Is Rewarding AI Results, Not Just AI Spending Patrick Sanders Sun, August 2, 2026 at 11:19 PM GMT+2 4 min read AMZN ^GSPC SNOW UBER Score one for Andy Jassy and his team at Amazon (AMZN). After months of AMZN stock underperforming the S&P 500 ($SPX) on fears that the company was spending too much, too fast on its artificial intelligence (AI) buildout, the CEO put those fears to rest with the latest earnings report. The release made one thing clear: Amazon's AI strategy is paying off in a big way.

Amazon's second-quarter report recorded the fastest growth in Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 18 quarters, with the segment exceeding an annual run rate of $25 billion in AI revenue thanks to new agreements signed with several big companies, including Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Pinterest (PINS), Snowflake (SNOW), and Moody's (MCO). Amazon also recorded a $25 billion annual run rate for its chips business, which includes its custom-built Trainium AI chip.

Amazon has commitments from AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI, Uber Technologies (UBER), Pinterest, and numerous smaller startups. More News from Barchart CoreWeave Just Scored a Leidos Partnership. What That Means for CRWV Stock Here.

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But here's the thing that perhaps impresses the most — investors rewarded AMZN stock even though Jassy announced that Amazon is increasing its projected capital expenditures this year from $200 billion to $220 billion. Fellow hyperscaler Alphabet (GOOGL) made a similar declaration earlier in the earnings cycle by announcing a jump in capex to $200 billion. Investors disapproved then, sending Alphabet stock down.

Its stock jumped 15% the day after the Q2 report, proving that the market is okay with spending on AI as long as companies prove they can be successful. Amazon hit that mark with room to spare. www.barchart.com Amazon Beats on Earnings Amazon's earnings report was solid across the board. Revenue came in at a whopping $200.6 billion, up 20% from a year ago.