Amazon CEO Talks AI Plans, Nvidia Results Underwhelm

Bloomberg (0:00)

From the heart of where innovation, money and power collide, in Silicon Valley and beyond, this is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.

Caroline Hyde (0:26)

Live from New York, I'm Caroline Hyde.

Jackie Davalos (0:29)

And I'm Jackie Davalos in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology.

Caroline Hyde (0:32)

Coming up, Nvidia shares slipping despite an upbeat view on the Blackwell lineup. That's as investors see a mixed outlook after two years of blowout results. Plus, investors unsure of Salesforce's new AI product, if it can spur faster sales growth or break down the company's earnings. And we sit down with the CEO of Amazon after the company unveiled the long-awaited AI version of its Alexa Assistant and just announced its new quantum computing chip. But first, a quick check on these markets. As we can currently see, we are under pressure once again. This is a macro picture that weighs heavily on the market, perhaps some inflationary pressures, worries about tariffs, and Nvidia numbers did not do enough to ease those concerns. We're down some 3.7%. Look, it's still a $3 trillion company, but herein lies the issue of whether or not Blackwell is ramping as fast enough to offset some of the concerns around China and tariffs and limitations on exports. Jensen Wang does a lot to talk about the new cycle of scaling laws that come, of course, from reasoning models. We move on to some other individual names that we're going to be diving into across the board. Salesforce under pressure of by 2% will discuss the earnings a little bit later. Agent Force not bringing in the revenue as quickly as had been anticipated. And let's just finish on the all-important Amazon. Currently trading as we see macro pressure on tech more broadly. We're currently flat, a new quantum chip. And most notably, of course, the generative AI infusion into Alexa Plus, which we can delve into in the CEO in a moment, because we now want to welcome to our TV and radio audiences worldwide, Amazon's president and CEO, Andy Jassy. Great to have you in New York.

Andy Jassy (2:07)

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Caroline Hyde (2:08)

Back home where you grew up. That's right. And you were unveiling generative AI-infused Alexa Plus. How is this going to really excite your customer base? What are you most excited for?

Andy Jassy (2:20)

Well, we've had, Alexa's been around for 10 years. We have 600 million devices in customers' homes and offices, and Alexa Plus is our next generation Alexa personal assistant, and she's meaningfully smarter and more capable and useful than her prior self. You can do all the things that you used to do, but every single one of those functions is better. And I can give you just an example. There are so many examples, but if you have smart home controls with Alexa, now you can say, hey, Alexa, I have guests coming over at 7 p.m. Could you raise the drapes? Could you raise the temperature by 5 degrees, turn on the porch lights and the driveway lights, and put on dinner music in the dining room?

Caroline Hyde (3:08)

Mellow music? You're not a guy who listens to mellow music.

Andy Jassy (3:10)

Me, I choose food fighters, but most people will choose mellow dining music. But you can do that all verbally and simply using conversational language like that. You don't need an app. It just happens. And so Alexa Plus, with what we've just announced and what we're launching, it really is there have been a lot of chatbots around that are good at answering questions, but they don't take actions. Alexa Plus is really, Alexa is going to be the first one that not only is highly intelligent to answer various questions, but she can do so many things for you. She can play music and play video and control your smart home and make reservations for you and hire people to fix your oven. It really is the first big large scale practical use of generative AI that consumers are going to be able to see and use naturally.

Caroline Hyde (3:56)

I can see how you're going to obsess over it, whether it's ordering the latest buffalo wings here in New York and seeing where the best space is to do that. But how are your stakeholders of shareholder base going to obsess about this? Generative AI in Alexa Plus, how is that adding value for them?

Andy Jassy (4:12)

Well, if you think about what Alexa allows customers to do, it makes shopping more easy because it's so much more intuitive now to buy products. It makes enjoying music easier, it makes enjoying video and streaming media better. It allows you to control your smart home in a different way. So every single one of our consumer customer experiences gets better with Alexa Plus. And then, of course, Alexa has its own business model. We have a brand new line up of devices that are coming in the fall that I think are beautiful, that I think people are going to really like. We have opportunities to service new products and advertising in various interfaces like our mobile and our desktop interface that's coming in Alexa. And then we have subscriptions. And so I think there's a sustainable business model there as well.