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☆ AI engineers report burnout, rushed rollouts as 'rat race' to stay competitive hits tech industry
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-03 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +16 min

The AI engineer bailed on his friends, who had traveled from the East Coast to the Seattle area. watch nowThis is the dark underbelly of the generative AI gold rush. Last year marked the beginning of the generative AI boom, following the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT near the end of 2022. Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesAn AI engineer at Microsoft said the company is engaged in an "AI rat race." The Microsoft AI engineer said a lot of tasks are about "trying to create AI hype" with no practical use.

Persons: Sebastien Bozon, Jensen Huang, Tech's, Amy Hood, Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Andy Jassy, Jassy, they're, Eric Gu, “, Gu, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Justin Sullivan, there's, Morry, Kolman, doesn't, Sundar Pichai, Bard, There's, That's, beholden, Ayodele Odubela, ", it’s, Adam Selipsky, Anthropic, Dario Amodei, Noah Berger, Odubela, Gemini Organizations: Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, AFP, Getty, Amazon, CNBC, Big Tech, Nvidia, Google . Engineers, Tech, Vision, Cloud Next, Web, Amazon Web Locations: Mulhouse, France, East Coast, Seattle, ChatGPT, San Francisco, Vegas, Las Vegas, German

☆ Read the email to Satya Nadella and Bill Gates that shows Microsoft's CTO was 'very worried' about Google's AI progress in 2019
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-01 | by ( Jyoti Mann | Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Microsoft's OpenAI investment may have been prompted by concerns over Google's AI progress. In a 2019 email, a Microsoft exec said he was "very, very worried" about Google's AI capabilities. AdvertisementIn 2019, Microsoft became "very, very worried" about Google's AI capabilities, newly unearthed emails show, and that may have been what spurred it to invest in OpenAI. In one lengthy email, Microsoft's chief technology officer Kevin Scott told Satya Nadella and Bill Gates that Google's AI-powered "auto-complete in Gmail" was "getting scarily good." Related storiesIn 2019, Microsoft made an initial $1 billion investment into its now multi-billion partnership with OpenAI.

Persons: —, Kevin Scott, Satya Nadella, Bill Gates, Nadella, Amy Hood, Bard, Scott, OpenAI, BERT Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Service, Department, Business, OpenAI, Bing Locations: OpenAI

☆ From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, AI specialists are a hot commodity
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Today's big story examines how recruitment for AI talent is ramping up in the tech industry and on Wall Street . AdvertisementEager to understand how to leverage the tech, companies are racing to scoop up AI specialists. But Big Tech companies aren't just competing with each other. With so many venture capitalists eager to fund AI ideas , some AI talent are starting their own companies. Businesses are already fighting the rule, but if it survives the courts it could mean even more movement of AI talent.

Persons: —, We've, we've, Justin Sullivan, Chelsea Jia Feng, Eager, Kali Hays, Ellen Thomas, Banks, it's, Getty, Sean Gladwell, Olga Pyrkina, Tyler Le, Amy Hood, Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Johannes Eisele, Swan, Mark Spitznagel, Spitznagel, David Einhorn, there's, Dimitrios Kambouris, Leon Neal, Abanti Chowdhury, Bill Gates, Gates, BI Gates, Satya Nadella, Zs, Herman Miller Eames, Dan DeFrancesco, Jordan Parker Erb, Hallam Bullock, George Glover, Grace Lett Organizations: Business, Service, Getty Images, Anadolu Agency, Big Tech, Johannes, Getty, Federal Reserve, Reuters, Research, Capital Economics, Greenlight, Staff, Microsoft, BI, Paramount Locations: California, AFP, America, New York, London, Chicago

☆ Alphabet stock surges 11% on blowout earnings and first dividend for Google owner
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( George Glover | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Alphabet shares surged in Friday's premarket after a blowout earnings report for the Google owner. AdvertisementAlphabet stock surged ahead of Friday's opening bell as investors cheered the Google owner's blowout first-quarter earnings. If those gains hold until the opening bell, its valuation will top $2 trillion for the first time. Meanwhile, Microsoft stock made more modest gains after it reported first-quarter earnings on Thursday afternoon. Shares were up almost in pre-market trading, putting its market capitalization on course to jump about $11 billion at the opening bell back above $3 trillion.

Persons: —, AJ Bell, Russ Mould, Amy Hood, hadn't, OpenAI, Sophie Lund, Yates, Hargreaves Lansdown Organizations: Google, Microsoft, Nasdaq, Big Tech, Service, Apple Locations: Friday's

☆ Nvidia jumps more than 15% this week. A key reason: what other companies are saying
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

"These are big checks made out to get Blackwells and H200s from, yes, Nvidia," Jim Cramer said during Friday's Morning Meeting . "There are a lot of people … that think this stock is a dangerous stock," Jim said. The next earnings report to shed light on demand for Nvidia's AI chips is set for Tuesday evening when Club name Amazon releases first-quarter results. While Amazon also has custom AI chips, it's a sizable Nvidia customer and the companies have enjoyed a longtime partnership. Even electric vehicle maker Tesla indicated earlier this week that it plans to buy tens of thousands more Nvidia chips this year to support self-driving car efforts.

Persons: Wall, Jim Cramer, Blackwell, OpenAI, There's, Jim, Wednesday's, – tanked, Alphabet's, FactSet, Ruth Porat, capex, Porat, Amy Hood, Hood, Microsoft's, Tesla, Jim Cramer's, Jensen Huang, Josh Edelson Organizations: Nvidia, Microsoft, Investors, Devices, Meta, Facebook, Bank of America, AMD, Broadcom, Wall, Google, Amazon, CNBC, SAP Center, AFP, Getty Locations: –, U.S, San Jose , California

☆ Microsoft's going to keep spending big as AI continues to boom
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Shubhangi Goel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Microsoft plans to boost spending on AI and cloud services as demand rises. Microsoft's spending commitment follows leaked plans to acquire 1.8 million AI chips in 2024. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . In its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, the tech giant said it will continue to invest in AI and cloud services because of growing demand and a rise in average spending on its cloud platform, Azure.

Persons: —, Amy Hood Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business

☆ Can a new batch of tech earnings rescue the market? Here are the factors at play
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Jeff Marks | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The market was already headed toward a down session due to disappointing reactions to earnings, which haven't been entirely bad. Club earnings : Microsoft and Alphabet report after the bell Thursday. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB.

Persons: Jim Cramer, haven't, hasn't, it's, Mark Zuckerberg, Amy Hood, Jim Cramer's, Jim Organizations: CNBC, Club, Meta, Tech, Nvidia, Broadcom, Microsoft, PCE, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Colgate, Palmolive, HCA Holdings, Jim Cramer's Charitable Locations: Abbvie

☆ Microsoft says cloud AI demand is exceeding supply even after 79% surge in capital spending
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

In its earnings report on Thursday, Microsoft said capital expenditures jumped 79% from a year earlier to $14 billion. "We do have demand that exceeds our supply by a bit," Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told analysts on the company's earnings call. During the fiscal third quarter, revenue in Microsoft's Azure cloud rose 31%, with 7 percentage points from AI. Microsoft intends "to scale to meet the growing demand signal for our cloud and AI products," she said. WATCH: Microsoft's capex increase for AI infrastructure is not a surprise, says Deepwater's Gene Munster

Persons: Amy Hood, Hood, Deepwater's Gene Munster Organizations: Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, Amazon Web Services Locations: Bellevue , Washington

A significant chunk of that money was strategic, in that it came from tech companies rather than venture capitalists or other institutions. The company has refocused much of its product development on generative AI, and its newly rebranded Gemini model, adding features into search, documents, maps and elsewhere. Alphabet and Nvidia are also investors in Runway ML, a generative AI company known for its video-editing and visual effects tools. Microsoft has invested in many of the techniques underpinning generative AI through its Microsoft Research division. Apple researchers recently published details of their work on MM1, a family of small AI models that can take both text and visual input.

Persons: Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Justin Sullivan, Claude, Fred Havemeyer, Havemeyer, that's, Anthropic, Gemini Ai, Michael M, It's, Amy Hood, dealmaking Daniel Newman, Mustafa Suleyman, Newman, Lina Khan Organizations: Getty, Getty Images Tech, aren't, GPT, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Nvidia, Google, Web Services, Amazon, Santiago, AMD, Runway ML, Mistral, Big Tech, Microsoft Research, Baidu, Futurum, Anthropic, Federal Trade Commission Locations: San Francisco, Macquarie, Anthropic, New York City, Mistral, U.S, China

☆ Microsoft's hiring of Inflection staff came amid a lack of consumer-AI vision and board concerns about OpenAI, insiders say
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Microsoft's hiring spree from the startup Inflection AI came amid concerns from the software giant's board about instability at OpenAI and internal doubts about consumer-AI vision and strategy, insiders said. Suleyman, who cofounded the AI pioneer DeepMind, is set to be CEO of Microsoft AI. Microsoft's consumer-AI vision needed a boostSome Microsoft insiders told Business Insider the company's consumer-AI strategy needed a boost and more of a visionary leader. As the new CEO of Microsoft AI, Suleyman's purview is set to include thousands of employees who report to Mikhail Parakhin. Parakhin has played a significant role in Microsoft's AI work and is generally respected within the company for his technical prowess.

Persons: Mustafa Suleyman, Karén Simonyan, Suleyman, they've, Mikhail Parakhin, Parakhin, Rajesh Jha, Jha wasn't, Jha, Microsoft's, Frank Shaw, Shaw, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, Nadella hadn't, Nadella, Amy Hood, It's, didn't, OpenAI Organizations: Big Tech, Business, Microsoft, BI, Google, Insiders, Microsoft's Locations: OpenAI

☆ Microsoft's AI growth is helping its cloud business weaken Amazon's lead
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-12 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 16, 2024. While Microsoft doesn't disclose revenue figures for its Azure cloud infrastructure, analyst figures suggest that five years ago it was half as big as AWS. In total, revenue at Azure increased 30% in the quarter, compared with 13% year-over-year growth at AWS. Microsoft has been adding graphics processing units (GPUs) to its data centers so that clients can run AI models in Azure. "We now have 53,000 Azure AI customers," CEO Satya Nadella told analysts on the company's earnings call.

Persons: Satya Nadella, Amy Hood, Microsoft's, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Jamin Ball, Andy Jassy Organizations: Economic, Amazon, Services, Microsoft, OpenAI, GPT, AWS Locations: Davos, Switzerland, Anthropic

☆ Big Tech's AI spending plans mean big business for 3 portfolio stocks, including Nvidia
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | In Kevinstankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Some of Amazon's spending is likely to go toward its custom AI chips, known as Trainium and Inferentia. But the Seattle-based tech giant also buys Nvidia chips. On Thursday's post-earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy said AWS offers the "most expansive collection of compute instances with Nvidia chips." Alphabet's spending on AI chips has typically been split between its custom chips designed in partnership with Broadcom, known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), and Nvidia's offerings. Including networking products that stitch together parts of the data center, about 15% of Broadcom's semiconductor revenue was tied to generative AI spending in fiscal 2023.

Persons: Eaton, Brian Olsavsky, FactSet, Amazon's capex, Andy Jassy, Meta's capex, Susan Li, Li, Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Meta, it's, —, Amy Hood, It's, chatbot ChatGPT, AMD's, Ruth Porat, Porat, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Florian Gaertner Organizations: Big Tech, Nvidia, Broadcom, Eaton, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Web Services, Facebook, Devices, OpenAI, supercomputing, TPUs, CNBC, YouTube, Photothek, Getty Locations: Eaton, Seattle

☆ Tech execs are telling investors they have to spend money to make money on AI
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

One theme investors heard repeatedly from top execs is that, when it comes to AI, they have to spend money to make money. Last year marked the beginning of the generative AI boom, as companies raced to embed increasingly sophisticated chatbots and assistants across key products. One key priority area, based on the latest earnings calls, is AI models-as-a-service, or large AI models that clients can use and customize according to their needs. Alphabet executives highlighted Vertex AI, a Google product that offers more than 130 generative AI models for use by developers and enterprise clients such as Samsung and Shutterstock. Alphabet executives touted Google's Duet AI, or "packaged AI agents" for Google Workspace and Google Cloud, designed to boost productivity and complete simple tasks.

Persons: Sundar Pichai, Mandel Ngan, Satya Nadella, Mark Zuckerberg, Josh Edelson, Zuckerberg, Nadella, Amy Hood, Pichai, You've, durably, Ruth Porat, Andy Jassy, Jassy, Tim Cook, Cook, Thos Robinson, Microsoft's, Rufus, Bard Organizations: Artificial Intelligence, AFP, Getty, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Meta, Google, Amazon, New York Times, Samsung, GE, Spotify, Pfizer Locations: Washington ,, Menlo Park , California, LLMs, New York City

☆ Here's the magnitude of AI's effect on Microsoft's bottom line and what it means for the stock
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Microsoft seemed to pass Wall Street's latest test when it demonstrated its ability to monetize artificial intelligence. The action came a day after Microsoft issued light guidance but delivered a top-and-bottom line beat and strong AI-focused commentary. Wall Street analysts across the board regarded Microsoft's results as an affirmation of its AI leadership position. Piper Sandler's Brent Bracelin said in a Tuesday note that the results "reinforced Microsoft's first-mover advantage in AI applications." Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs analyst Kash Rangan called the company one of the "most compelling" opportunities across sectors, viewing AI as a major boon for an "already strong growth profile."

Persons: Brent Thill, Satya Nadella, Amy Hood, Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss, Piper Sandler's Brent Bracelin, Goldman Sachs, Kash Rangan, Mark Murphy, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: Microsoft, Barclays, Raimo, Wall Street

☆ Cramer: Earnings take center stage this week, but don't sleep on the Fed and Treasury
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-28 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

It's ironic: We are at a moment where supply of money and demand for goods are intersecting. We have two markets: the Treasury market and the equity market, with the first more powerful than the second, even if we can't tell that in the scrum of earnings announcements. If the Fed signals more rate cuts, then we will be set up for higher stock prices if the companies deliver good earnings. The possibility of higher earnings so far has been controlled by supply and demand and the disinflation it is breeding, which may continue this week. Hence the power of their earnings to generate the mask of a higher market price-to-earnings ratio.

Persons: We've, Josh Frost, —, disinflation, Tesla, Amy Hood, McCormick, Costco's Kirkland, Jerome Powell doesn't, Price, it's, Dupont —, Dupont, Josh Frost —, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Jerome Powell, Brendan Mcdermid Organizations: Treasury, Federal Reserve, Devices, Microsoft, Apple, Financial Markets, Nvidia, Google, Walmart, Starbucks, Fed, Caterpillar, Boeing, Jim Cramer's Charitable, CNBC, New York Stock Exchange

☆ Are companies beyond Nvidia actually profiting from AI yet? Microsoft earnings to be litmus test
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Microsoft earnings due out later this month could serve as the next major test for artificial intelligence as investors hunt for signs that the buzzy technological innovation is actually boosting companies' bottom lines. Nvidia has been an exception, blowing past Wall Street's guidance for the past few quarters due to AI tailwinds . The remarks led some Wall Street analysts to fret over a delayed ramp-up in AI availability. "There are going to be some outliers, but for the most part there is more risk-reward related to AI going into this earnings period." More loosely, Wall Street analysts have expressed concerns about AI monetization and expectations across the sector heading into the fourth-quarter reporting period.

Persons: Paul Meeks, Merrill Lynch, Piper Sandler, OpenAI, Amy Hood, Copilot, Micrsoft, Meeks, Amy Kong, Nancy Tengler, Gene Munster, Corient's Kong, Wolfe, Alex Zukin, Dubravko, Michael Bloom Organizations: Microsoft, Merrill, Merrill Lynch Investment, Nvidia, Wall, Baker School of Business, The, Investments, Asset Management, Munster, Wall Street, Tech Locations: OpenAI, hasn't

Microsoft said in a Friday regulatory filing that a Russian intelligence group accessed some of the software maker's top executives' email accounts. The company said a group called Nobelium carried out the attack, which it detected last week. Microsoft and the U.S. government consider Nobelium to be a part of the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR. The hacking group was responsible for one of the most prolific breaches in U.S. history, when it breached government supplier SolarWinds in 2020. It was also implicated alongside another Russian hacking group in the 2016 breach of the Democratic National Committee's systems.

Persons: Amy Hood, Brad Smith, Satya Nadella, Nobelium Organizations: Microsoft, Infrastructure Security Agency, U.S, SolarWinds, Department of Defense, Democratic National Locations: Russian, U.S

Read previewThe firing and rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has undone months of effort by Microsoft to avoid antitrust regulators probing its massive investment in the startup. It's tough to keep a huge business partnership like this out of what can be intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators. Nadella agreed to give Altman and Brockman their own research arm at Microsoft, if he couldn't negotiate their return to OpenAI. Another interpretation is that Microsoft is keen to show antitrust regulators that OpenAI is an independent company, and not controlled by the software giant. AdvertisementDo you work for OpenAI or Microsoft, or are you someone with a tip or insight to share?

Persons: —, Sam Altman, Lina Khan, OpenAI, Altman, Satya Nadella, Kevin Scott didn't, Kevin, Satya, Microsoft's, Brad Smith, Frank Shaw, Sam, Nadella, Altman's, Greg Brockman, Brockman, Amy Hood, ChatGPT, doesn't, Kali Hays, Ashley Stewart, Darius Rafieyan Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business, FTC, OpenAI, Activision, Blizzard, Markets, Bloomberg, Chief Locations: OpenAI, khays@insider.com, astewart@insider.com

☆ Microsoft assures investors it's spreading its AI bets beyond just OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-07 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

AI was a major focus of questions from Microsoft investors during the event. AdvertisementOn Thursday, Microsoft executives made a point to assure investors that it has many irons in the fire when it comes to AI, not just OpenAI. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood jumped in to emphasize the company has AI partners beyond OpenAI. AdvertisementAs Business Insider recently reported, the chaos at OpenAI caused some partners to start looking for a "plan B" for their AI model needs. Are you an OpenAI, or Microsoft employee, or someone with a tip or insight to share?

Persons: —, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Satya Nadella, Nadella, Amy Hood, Hood, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Service, Business, Microsoft Locations: OpenAI, astewart@insider.com

☆ Big Tech earnings highlighted big spending on artificial intelligence. Here's what it means for AI king Nvidia
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | In Kevinstankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

All four companies are buyers of Nvidia's cutting-edge AI chips, which dominate the market for training the massive models that power applications like the viral ChatGPT. "I think that Nvidia is the quiet partner behind the winners including Microsoft," Jim Cramer said Friday. Notably, about 3 percentage points of Azure's growth was linked to customer AI spending, Hood said. Amazon Amazon's results and earnings call Thursday added to the body of evidence on AI spending as a priority at U.S. tech giants. This week's slate of Big Tech earnings left little doubt that, as more Nvidia chips become available, there will be a place inside data centers for them to go.

Persons: haven't, —, Jensen Huang, Jim Cramer, NVDA, Jim, Amy Hood, Hood, Ruth Porat, Porat, Susan Li, Brian Olsavsky, Andy Jassy, Jassy, It's, Jim Cramer's, Jensen Huang Getty Organizations: Nvidia, Big Tech, Microsoft, Facebook, U.S, Google, Broadcom, AWS, Loop, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, CNBC Locations: China, OpenAI, Amazon's

☆ Despite the AI hype, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are seeing cloud growth rates stall as customers try to cut costs
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Despite the promise of generative AI to turbo-charge cloud computing sales, growth rates in the sector remains stalled for Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. All three cloud providers reported this week that cloud customers are still scrutinizing their IT budgets amid a shaky global economy. Cloud sales growth rates stalled this year as customers navigated rising inflation and destabilizing geopolitical conflicts. The company told investors the stalled growth was due to "customer optimization efforts" — a nicer word for cost-cutting. At the same time last year, Amazon Web Services sales were growing by more than double that rate.

Persons: Brian Olsavsky, GitHub Copilot, Satya Nadella, Amy Hood, Hood, It's, Nadella, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services Locations: ethomas@insider.com

☆ Microsoft shares rise as Wall Street heralds ‘strong execution,’ wider AI rollout
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Rohan Goswami | In Rohangoswamicnbc | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The company also beat revenue consensus among analysts surveyed by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv. Microsoft reported revenue of $56.52 billion for the quarter, compared to a consensus estimate of $54.50 billion. Zelnick raised his price target from $380 to $395, adding that "operating discipline" and "a full-stack approach to delivering AI solutions" was just as, if not more impressive, than Microsoft's revenue beat. Azure revenue alone, which Microsoft doesn't disclose in dollars, grew 29% during the quarter. Comments from Microsoft executives helped boost analyst sentiment as well, with Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood saying on a Tuesday call with analysts, "We feel good about our execution, we feel good about taking share and we feel good about consistent trends."

Persons: Brad Zelnick, Zelnick, Raimo Lenschow, Microsoft's, Lenschow, Amy Hood, Jordan Novet, Michael Bloom Organizations: Microsoft, LSEG, Deutsche Bank, Software, Barclays, CNBC

☆ The startup extinction wave is rising and it's beginning to wash over the cloud industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Startup shutdowns will continue at an elevated pace for the next 2 to 3 quarters, according to Peter Walker, head of insights at Carta. There's one big caveat to these concernsThe generative AI boom is firing up demand for AI cloud services. And they're using some of that new money to spend on AI cloud services. The company's cloud growth was healthy in the third quarter, helped by demand for new AI services. The company has been rolling out a slew of AI cloud offerings lately.

Persons: It's, —, Carta, Peter Walker, Bernstein, Ruth Porat, Amy Hood, they're, we'll Organizations: Service, Carta, Services, Google, Amazon, Microsoft

Microsoft's chief financial officer Amy Hood said on a conference call with analysts that higher-than-expected AI consumption was responsible for a 3 percentage point boost to its cloud business. Alphabet has prioritized snaring AI startups as customers for its cloud division, while Microsoft has relied on its existing relationships to secure larger customers. Azure revenue rose 29%, higher than a 26.2% growth estimate from market research firm Visible Alpha. RBC Capital Markets has previously estimated that Microsoft will clock over $3 billion in revenue from generative AI offerings this fiscal year. Quite surprising to see strong growth reacceleration in the Azure Cloud segment, which is clearly driven by AI-as-a-service related demand," said Global X analyst Tejas Dessai.

Persons: Microsoft's, Bob O'Donnell, Bing, Bard, Amy Hood, Krishna Chintalapalli, capex, Akash Sriram, Anna Tong, Max Cherney, Yuvraj Malik, Greg Bensinger, Stephen Nellis, Sayantani Ghosh, Sonali Paul Organizations: Microsoft, Wall, Microsoft's, TECHnalysis, Parnassus Investments, DAZZLES, Alpha, RBC Capital Markets, Reuters Graphics Microsoft, Tejas Dessai, AWS, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru, Anna, San Francisco

☆ Here's what we hope to see from AI powerhouse Microsoft's quarterly earnings this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft's cloud business, Azure, is crucial to its increased focus on AI. Analysts estimate Azure revenue growth in the fiscal first quarter expanded 27% year-over-year in constant currency terms, according to FactSet. Analysts at Piper Sandler said the Nov. 1 general release of Microsoft's 365 Copilot , an AI assistant to productivity applications like Word, should be a catalyst for shares. Bottom line The full payoff of Microsoft's AI efforts won't be fully reflected in the upcoming quarterly results given generative AI is still in its infancy. In July, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said growth from the company's AI offerings "will be gradual as Azure AI scales and our Copilots reach general availability dates."

Persons: Bing, Piper Sandler, Amy Hood, Copilot, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Omar Marques Organizations: Microsoft, OpenAI, LSEG, Activision Blizzard, CNBC, Getty

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