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Amazon reported fourth-quarter earnings slightly below Wall Street estimates even as sales surged and it reported the fastest growth in its prominent cloud computing business in 13 quarters. The Seattle-based online behemoth on Thursday reported net income of USD 21.2 billion, or USD 1.95 per share, for the three-month period ended December 31. That compares with USD 20 billion, or USD 1.86 per share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 14 per cent to USD 213.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with USD 187.8 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts were expecting USD 1.97 per share on sales of USD 211.4 billion, according to analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue from its cloud service arm called Amazon Web Services increased 24 per cent to USD 35.6 billion. Analysts were expecting USD 34.9 billion. Amazon said it plans to increase capital spending to USD 200 billion this year from USD 125 billion as it sees opportunities in artificial intelligence, robots, semiconductors an
The one thing N. Lee Plumb knows for sure that being laid off from Amazon last week wasn't a failure to get on board with the company's artificial intelligence plans. Plumb, his team's head of "AI enablement," says he was so prolific in his use of Amazon's new AI coding tool that the company flagged him as one of its top users. Many assumed Amazon's 16,000 corporate layoffs announced last week reflected CEO Andy Jassy's push to "reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company." But like other companies that have tied workforce changes to AI - including Expedia, Pinterest and Dow last week - it can be hard for economists, or individual employees like Plumb, to know if AI is the real reason behind the layoffs or if it's the message a company wants to tell Wall Street. "AI has to drive a return on investment," said Plumb, who worked at Amazon for eight years. "When you reduce headcount, you've demonstrated efficiency, you ..