Exclusive-Amazon CEO sees AI doubling prior AWS sales projections to $600 billion by 2036

By Greg Bensinger

SAN FRANCISCO, March 17 (Reuters) – Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said during an internal all-hands meeting he expects artificial intelligence could help cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services achieve $600 billion in annual sales, double his own prior ​estimate.

“I’ve been thinking for the last number of years that AWS, call ‌it 10 years from now, could be about a $300 billion annual revenue, run rate business,” Jassy said, according to a review of his comments by Reuters. “I think what’s happening in AI that AWS has a chance to be at least double that.”

Amazon held one of its regular all hands meetings on Tuesday ‌to ​provide employees updates on businesses ranging from drone deliveries ⁠to advertising sales to Amazon Fresh ⁠groceries.

AWS in 2025 booked $128.7 billion in sales, up 19% from 2024. Jassy’s projection suggests an average growth rate of nearly 17% every year for the next decade. He did not elaborate on how those sales might be distributed and an Amazon ​spokesperson declined to comment beyond Jassy’s comments.

Wall Street balked at Amazon’s planned commitment of $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, primarily for AI development and infrastructure, sending shares ⁠down sharply. During a question and answer session Tuesday, ⁠Jassy read the query which said the expenditures “received a lot of ​attention” and began by saying “that’s one way of putting it.”

AI “gives you this very unusual opportunity ​to build this very large business, and we have very clear and ‌significant demand signals,” he said, according to the comments reviewed by Reuters. “We’re not just spending the $200 billion of capex because we’re hoping AI is going to be big.”

He added: “The faster we grow in AWS, the more capex we have to spend shorter term, because we ⁠have to lay out all that capital for land, power, buildings, chips, servers, networking gear. We have to lay all that out a couple of years in advance of when we’re ⁠going to monetize.”

Among other announcements ‌during the meeting was that Amazon expects to make its ⁠one millionth delivery using drones sometime this year. That program, ​promising deliveries ‌of items that can fit in a shoebox in 30 minutes ​or less, ⁠has been in development since at least 2013 when it was announced on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

Amazon, which announced the closure of its Fresh and Go physical store formats in January, said during the meeting that those brick-and-mortar stores accounted for less than 1% of its overall grocery sales.

Amazon shares were up about 1.75% to $215.44.

(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Chris ​Reese and Nick Zieminski)