Amazon Might Be the Most Obvious AI Stock Investors Are Missing

Most investors searching for artificial intelligence (AI) winners are chasing chipmakers, chatbot developers, or the latest AI application start-ups. But one of the biggest long-term beneficiaries of the AI boom may already be hiding in plain sight -- and many casual investors still think of it as just an e-commerce company.

I'm talking about Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

While rivals compete for attention with consumer-facing AI products, Amazon is quietly building something potentially more valuable: the infrastructure layer powering the broader AI economy.

Image source: Getty Images.

AWS may become one of the biggest winners of the AI era

Amazon's biggest advantage in the AI race is Amazon Web Services (AWS). For years, AWS has been the backbone of cloud computing. Increasingly, it's becoming part of the backbone for artificial intelligence as well.

AI models require enormous amounts of computing power, storage, and networking capacity to train and operate. That demand plays directly into AWS' strengths. Instead of trying to dominate every consumer-facing AI application, Amazon is taking a more strategic position: supplying the infrastructure that powers everyone else's AI ambitions.

In many ways, Amazon is selling the "picks and shovels" of the AI gold rush.

And it's moving aggressively. The company has developed its own AI chips -- Trainium and Inferentia -- designed to lower the cost of AI training and inference. Its Bedrock platform also enables businesses to build generative AI applications using models from Amazon and partners such as Anthropic.

This focus is important because enterprises don't just want flashy AI tools. They want a scalable, secure, and cost-efficient infrastructure that integrates with existing operations. AWS already serves thousands of businesses globally, giving it a distribution advantage that few competitors can match.

In other words, Amazon doesn't necessarily need to build the best AI app. It simply needs to power the infrastructure layer, helping businesses deploy AI at scale.

AI could strengthen Amazon's entire ecosystem

Beyond providing AI solutions, what makes Amazon especially interesting is that AI isn't confined to a single business segment.

The company is embedding AI across nearly every part of its ecosystem:

• Improving product recommendations in e-commerce
• Optimizing fulfillment and delivery routes
• Enhancing advertising targeting
• Supporting enterprise AI applications through AWS

So, unlike many pure AI companies, Amazon already owns the infrastructure, customer relationships, logistics network, and commerce platform needed to deploy AI globally.

That creates a powerful flywheel. Better AI recommendations improve shopping experiences. Better advertising tools help merchants sell more products. Increased marketplace activity generates more data, further improving Amazon's systems. Few companies operate at this scale across commerce, cloud, media, logistics, and advertising simultaneously.

That may become one of Amazon's biggest long-term advantages in AI.

But investors should still be realistic with their expectations

Of course, despite all the advantages discussed above, Amazon isn't risk-free.

The company is spending heavily on AI infrastructure, which could pressure margins and free cash flow in the near term. For perspective, it expects to invest about $200 billion in capex in 2026, so that will consume enormous financial resources.

Also, competition remains intense, particularly from Microsoft and Google in cloud and AI services. But given the huge demand for AI services, one can argue that many players can compete and win simultaneously.

Last but not least, valuation also matters when investing in stocks. With a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 33 times (as of this writing), Amazon's stock already reflects considerable optimism around AWS and AI.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

What does it mean for investors?

For years, investors viewed Amazon primarily as an online retailer and a cloud provider. Increasingly, that framework may be insufficient.

Amazon is quietly evolving into something much larger: an AI infrastructure, cloud, advertising, and commerce platform operating at a global scale.

It may not be the loudest AI company in the market. But over the next decade, it could become one of the most important AI stocks -- one that investors cannot afford to miss.

Lawrence Nga has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.