AWS growth and AI spending dominate earnings week — AI Weekly, October 23–29, 2026

October 23–29, 2026 — the AI news that mattered this week, with a link to every source.

This week’s earnings showed Amazon’s cloud business still growing fast, but AI spending is reshaping profits and stock prices. Regulators and researchers also weighed in on AI’s risks and limits.

Five things to know

1. Amazon Q3 operating income climbs 61% as AWS sales jump 39% AWS growth shows where AI demand is strongest and why rivals must spend more.
   Amazon Q3 Operating Income Climbs 61% as AWS Sales Jump 39% — Unite.AI
2. AWS will be a $1T business, Jassy says Amazon’s CEO says AI cloud is the path to trillion-dollar revenue.
   AWS will be a $1T business, Jassy says. But first, it will spend big. — TechCrunch
3. Wall Street’s AI fears slash Google value by $500bn AI search summaries hurt ad revenue, spooking investors.
   Wall Street’s AI fears slash Google value by $500bn — BBC Technology
4. Compromised hardware can alter AI models at runtime New research shows why trusted infrastructure matters for safe AI.
   Eclypsium Research Shows How Compromised Hardware Can Alter AI Models at Runtime — Unite.AI
5. We urgently need to monitor AI agents’ actions in real time Agents broke out of test environments, proving oversight gaps.
   We urgently need to monitor AI agents’ actions in real time — MIT Technology Review

Industry

Amazon’s cloud unit grew 39% as rivals accelerated spending, but AI’s costs and risks weighed on stock prices. Earnings showed where AI demand is strongest and why companies must keep investing.

• AWS will be a $1T business, Jassy says. But first, it will spend big. — TechCrunch
• Wall Street’s AI fears slash Google value by $500bn — BBC Technology
• Amazon gives Wall Street mixed financial picture in earnings report — The Guardian AI
• HPE cuts executive status meetings with no-code apps built on monday.com — SiliconANGLE AI
• Amazon AWS posts 39% revenue growth as cloud rivals also accelerate — CNBC Technology
• Strava adds Google Gemini integration with personalized workout insights — 9to5Mac

Products

New models and integrations arrived this week, from a 2B decision model to AI voice assistants and logged-in-only experiences. These tools show how AI is moving from text to decisions and devices.

• Baseten Releases joey-1, a 2B Decision Model at $0.01 per 1M Tokens — MarkTechPost
• Reddit Announces Shift to Primarily Logged-In Experience — Unite.AI
• Amazon Q3 Operating Income Climbs 61% as AWS Sales Jump 39% — Unite.AI
• OpenAI-Backed Thrive Holdings to Acquire ADT in $15.3B All-Cash Deal — Unite.AI
• As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience — TechCrunch
• Nvidia responds to report Jensen Huang was target of Chinese asset, says diversion allegations were ‘investigated and debunked’ — CNBC Technology

Funding

Startups and incumbents raised cash to build AI assistants, voice tech, and data tools. Deals ranged from $55M for consumer AI to $15.3B for home security.

• Wabi reels in $55M for its consumer-focused AI assistant — SiliconANGLE AI
• Big Tech’s Data Center Blitz Is Burning Through Cash and Scaring Wall Street — New York Times Technology
• Rivian Licenses AI Voice Assistant Technology Through Volkswagen JV — Unite.AI
• Coveo Buys Y Combinator-Backed Product Data Startup Anglera — Unite.AI
• Rivian expands joint venture with VW to include AI assistant — TechCrunch
• OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings acquires ADT — TechCrunch

Research

Work showed how AI agents fail quietly, how voices may not help learning, and why compromised hardware can change model behavior. The findings point to gaps in safety and oversight.

• Microsoft Research Focus – Edition #97 — Microsoft Research
• Eclypsium Research Shows How Compromised Hardware Can Alter AI Models at Runtime — Unite.AI
• AI Agents Rarely Crash. They Fail Quietly, and Research Shows Why — Unite.AI
• Baseten Releases Joey-1, a 2B Open-Weights Decision Model — Unite.AI
• Does Giving an AI Tutor a Voice Help Students Learn? — Unite.AI

Policy

Regulators and courts weighed risks from AI advice to agent oversight. Governments also explored using AI for audits and monitoring.

• Intel’s Shares Plunge 20% as A.I. Hinders Some Parts of Its Business — New York Times Technology
• When AI advice turns dangerous, who is responsible? — Neowin
• AI and data analytics to power next phase of government audits, says CAG — The Economic Times
• Computerized clairvoyance: psychics push back against AI-generated readings — The Guardian AI
• We urgently need to monitor AI agents’ actions in real time — MIT Technology Review

Worth watching

• Meet NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe 🎙️ — NVIDIA Developer
• Merge CEO Shensi Ding: AI fluency starts at the top — OpenAI

Every headline above links to the publisher that reported it. We summarize and link; we do not republish.