Amazon Will Be 'Prominent Player In AI,' Josh Brown Says As AWS Launches Generative AI Innovation Center

Amazon.com Inc AMZN on Thursday announced a new program to help customers build and deploy generative AI solutions. Although the e-commerce giant seems to be a step behind other big tech firms in the early stages of the AI race, that's not likely to be the case in the future.

What To Know: Amazon has unveiled its AWS Generative AI Innovation Center. The company plans to invest $100 million in the program, which will connect customers with AI and machine learning experts at Amazon Web Services so they can turn their AI ideas into reality faster and more effectively.

Amazon said the new AI center is just one part of the company's broader AI strategy, which aims to deliver AI to customers at scale. 

Why It Matters: Following the announcement Thursday on CNBC's "Fast Money Halftime Report," Ritholtz Wealth Management's Josh Brown, who is a longtime Amazon shareholder, applauded the news.

Amazon shares are making new multimonth highs on the heels of the announcement, he said. Although most people don't buy Amazon stock as an AI play, he said the company has been gearing up for the AI revolution and is more involved than most think.

The company's cloud technology is at the center of just about everything that people are going to want to use and build, Brown said. 

"Amazon has its own AI chips, it's building its own workflows, its own ecosystem, its own environment. And there is no future in which Amazon is not a prominent player in AI." 

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Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky hammered the same points home in an interview on CNBC Thursday afternoon.

Amazon is data-rich and data is what powers AI, he said, adding that at this point in the AI race, it's about choice and experimentation, not where the competitors currently stand. 

"Where are the different runners three steps into a 10k race? Does it really matter? The point is that we're three steps in and it's a 10k race and what people need today is choice and to be able to experiment and to be able to figure out what different types of models, what different types of use cases are most powerful and that's why customers are so excited to work with AWS for generative AI," Selipsky said. 

At Amazon's AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, the company said a team of strategists, data scientists, engineers and solutions architects will work with customers step-by-step to help them harness the power of generative AI more effectively, while reducing costs. 

AMZN Price Action: Amazon shares were up 3.19% at $128.83 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro.

Alongside the company's AI announcements, the stock is also getting a lift Thursday from positive analyst coverage from Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan.

Photo: courtesy of Amazon.