Amazon focuses on AI, adds Andrew Ng to board – former MTV executive McGrath resigns

Image credits: Nathan Stark/Getty Images

If decisions made by a company's board can indicate where the company wants to focus its efforts, Amazon's board has made an interesting move. The company announced Thursday that Andrew Ng, known for developing AI at major technology companies, will join its board of directors. The company also announced that Judy McGrath, a longtime television executive who ran MTV and is known for helping build Viacom into a media powerhouse, will resign from its board.

Taken together, these two moves create an interesting picture of the tech giant's intentions.

After years of working hard to build an entertainment empire (Amazon spent about $19 billion on its video and music business in 2023), he was a key advocate and advisor to its strategy. Mr. McGrath will not run for re-election.

That doesn't mean Amazon won't be a huge force in video, music, games, and other streaming entertainment. The company is now incorporating advertising throughout Prime Video, which is likely one of the big reasons it keeps viewers happy and coming back.

Still, it will be interesting to see how investment in that space plays out in 2024. The company has laid off hundreds of employees in its studio and video divisions, and is also downsizing Prime Video in some regions. In the future, business may become smaller or at least more concentrated. And McGrath's departure from the board feels timely, given his AI whiplash issue that every big tech company is currently dealing with.

In that regard, Amazon will likely seek greater thought leadership in the next steps of its artificial intelligence strategy to remain at the forefront of technology.

It's worth remembering that Amazon has long been a major player in AI. The company's Alexa assistant and his Echo devices helped put voice recognition and connected assistants on the map. The company is working on autonomous services that not only handle in-store purchases, but also air and ground delivery. Use machine learning to improve how you target your products. AWS is a giant in AI computing. And now it's pouring billions into investing in major AI startups.

However, given OpenAI's advances in GPT, Amazon has been grappling with the impression internally and externally that it is behind the curve on this technology for at least a year.

really? Is it just optics? Whatever the answer, Ng's appointment will only help raise Amazon's profile in the AI ​​space. Simply put, the company wants and believes there is a need for real innovation in this space. In Amazon's annual letter to shareholders, published shortly after Ng's announcement, Andy Jassy named GenAI as a future focus as Amazon's fourth “pillar” (along with Marketplace, Prime, and AWS). ). It requires serious, high-level instruction on how to do more than just follow-on movements.

Image credits: tech crunch

Ng could potentially appoint three threats to the board. He has experience in academia, investing, and hands-on construction, and typically holds all three of his roles simultaneously. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. General partner of a venture studio called AI Fund. He leads the edtech company DeepLearning.AI. and He is the founder of computer vision startup Landing AI. Oh, and he's also the chairman of Coursera, another edtech startup he founded and led.

Mr. Ng also served as chief scientist and vice president of Chinese search giant Baidu. And he founded and led his Google Brain. that This is the search giant's first major foray into building and applying AI technology across its products.

Amazon did not clarify Ng's statement in its statement. We've reached out to him directly and will update if we hear back.

It may feel like a new wave of companies and thinkers are pioneering AI, but the Amazons of the world are not sitting idly by.