The AI wars: How Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta are investing

Big technology giants are going all in on artificial intelligence, investing in their own internal labs producing AI assistants, or making major investments into external companies such as OpenAI.

In an effort to achieve artificial general intelligence, Google procured Deep Mind, which developed the Gemini assistant, and Meta has its own Meta AI lab, which developed the Llama model.

Microsoft has invested into OpenAI, best known for ChatGPT, and Amazon has invested US$8 billion into its competitor Anthropic, which has the chatbot Claude.

But Amazon has also been quietly building its own AI models – it revealed six new models at its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas last week, include a video and image generator to compete with OpenAI’s Dall-E and Sora models.

“We will continue to invest in this, because it’s such an exciting time but it’s also such early days in the technology cycle.” Amazon Web Services head of AI and data Swami Sivasubramanian told Markets with Madison in Las Vegas.

“Nobody knows which model architectures are going to be durable in the long run.

“Nobody knows which assistants are going to resonate or not resonate.”

Amazon Web Services head of AI and data Swami Sivasubramanian reveals some of its latest investments at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, December 2024.

Learn about the AI wars between big technology giants, including why Amazon is investing across all layers of the AI stack, in today’s episode of Markets with Madison above.

Get investment insights from executives and experts on Markets with Madison every Monday and Friday here on the NZ Herald, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

Sponsored by CMC Markets.

Madison travelled to Las Vegas courtesy of Amazon Web Services.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this programme is of a general nature, and is not intended to be personalised financial advice. We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified professional to suit your individual circumstances.

Madison Reidy is host and executive producer of the NZ Herald’s investment show Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.