Like other companies, Amazon is attempting to show it is winning when it comes to AI, as evidenced by several press releases this week. On Tuesday, it said it was showcasing its vision for AI at the CES 2026 trade show this week. Its vision is to make customers’ lives easier – though the “convenience versus creepiness” issue may again be at play through its ambient AI feature:
“Amazon’s latest innovations demonstrate ambient AI: products and experiences that are there when you need them and disappear into the background, always ready, when you don’t.”
And as some of the top experts in AI have moved around from one company to another over the past year, Amazon issued a press release on Wednesday, “5 things to know about Peter DeSantis, Amazon’s new leader for AGI, chips, and quantum computing,” as if to assure people he wasn’t going anywhere. “After 27 years at Amazon, DeSantis now oversees a new organization uniting some of the company’s most ambitious long-term technology bets,” according to the press release, which quoted DeSantis:
“We’re uniquely long-term focused as a company. If we are convicted about something, we will see it through to success. The best example I know is AWS itself. When I first joined AWS, there was a lot of skepticism across the company about our investment in this new business. There was concern it would distract us and a belief that it would never be meaningful for Amazon. That seems silly now, but that’s really what a lot of people thought—internally and externally. Our leadership and team stayed convicted, and we all see how that turned out. We have similar conviction in chips, AI foundational models, and quantum computing.”
So devoted to the company is DeSantis that it appears in the accompanying photo that he wearing a belt buckle with the AWS logo that includes the Amazon smile graphic.
Amazon’s use of AI also made headlines this week, but as part of a controversy. Branded merchants complained Amazon was displaying their off-Amazon listings on its shopping app without their permission, with some claiming that its AI feature was misrepresenting their listings – possibly due to gen-AI hallucinations.
