If the selections made by corporate boards can provide insight into what an organization desires to give attention to, Amazon's board just made an interesting move. The company announced On Thursday, it was announced that Andrew Ng, known for constructing AI at major tech corporations, was joining its board. The company also said that Judy McGrath — best known for her work as a longtime TV executive who ran MTV and helped Viacom grow to be a media conglomerate — would step down as director.
Taken together, the 2 moves paint an interesting picture of the tech giant's intentions.
After many costly years of trying every little thing to construct an entertainment empire (Amazon has… almost $19 billion on his video and music business in 2023), it’s interesting to see that McGrath, who would have been a key proponent and advisor of this strategy, won’t be running for re-election.
That doesn't mean Amazon will stop being a significant force in streaming entertainment, be it video, music, games, or anything. The company is now rolling out promoting on Prime Video, which is an enormous reason it wants to maintain its audience pleased and coming back.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see how investments on this segment play out in 2024. The company has laid off tons of of employees in its studio and video divisions and in addition discontinued Prime Video in some regions, which could suggest the corporate could possibly be smaller or at the least more focused in the longer term. And given the AI whiplash every Big Tech company is currently coping with, it looks as if it's time for McGrath to step down from the board now.
To stay on the forefront of technology, Amazon will seek higher thought leadership in the subsequent steps of its artificial intelligence strategy.
It is value remembering that Amazon has long been a number one player in AI. The Alexa assistant and Echo devices have helped popularize voice recognition and connected assistants. The company is working on autonomous services for air and ground delivery and in-store shopping. it uses machine learning to enhance product targeting; AWS is an enormous player in AI computing; and now it's pouring billion in investments in large AI startups.
But for at the least a 12 months, Amazon has struggled with this perception as OpenAI advances its GPT internally And externally that it’s falling behind technologically.
Is it true? Is it just the optics? Whatever the reply, Ng's appointment can only help raise Amazon's profile in AI. Simply put: the corporate wants and believes it must create real innovation on this area. Andy Jassy, at Amazon Annual letter to shareholders, released shortly after the Ng announcement, even went to date as to call GenAI Amazon's fourth “pillar” (alongside Marketplace, Prime, and AWS) when it comes to future direction. This requires serious, high-level guidance on easy methods to do greater than just follow-up.
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Ng is potentially a triple-threat executive position: He has experience in science, investing and hands-on construction, and has typically performed all three roles concurrently. He is currently an associate professor at Stanford University; a general partner at a enterprise studio called AI Fund; and he runs the edtech company DeepLearning.AI is the founding father of the pc vision startup Landing AI. Oh, and he's also chairman of Coursera, one other edtech startup he founded and runs.
Ng was also chief scientist and vp at Chinese search engine giant Baidu. and he founded and led Google Brain, the search giant's first major foray into developing and applying AI technology in its products.
Amazon didn’t provide a comment from Ng in its announcement. We've reached out to him directly and can update as soon as we hear back.
It may feel like a brand new wave of corporations and thinkers is setting the pace in AI, however the Amazons of the world are actually not standing idle.
