Research Briefing: Amazon continues to prioritize emerging tech with recent investment in AI startup Anthropic

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78% of marketers say their company uses AI assistants or chatbots

Amazon recently announced an investment of upwards of $4 billion into AI startup Anthropic. The company has a language model called Claude, which, according to Anthropic’s website, “excels at a wide range of tasks from sophisticated dialogue and creative content generation to detailed instruction.” This investment signals a clear intention from Amazon to start incorporating more AI into its internal processes and likely expand its consumer-facing Amazon Alexa product. 

In Modern Retail+ Research’s survey on emerging technologies, AI was a top technology in terms of marketer adoption and interest. At the time of the survey, chatbots and AI assistants were the No. 1 category of AI applications marketers used at 78% of respondents. Since then, generative AI (such as ChatGPT and Bard) has taken off and companies are finding it even easier to integrate AI into their systems.

Amazon’s investment in Anthropic is not the first time Amazon has ventured into the emerging technologies arena. In Modern Retail’s 2022 Index, we reported that the apparel arm of the retail behemoth, Amazon Fashion, utilizes AR virtual try-on for shoes on its app. Similar to other clothing-heavy retailers, like Macy’s and Nordstrom, Amazon has developed digital strategies that combine both e-commerce with emerging technology. 

Amazon’s investment in emerging technology goes as far back as 2012. Amazon spent $775 million to purchase Kiva Systems in 2012, considered by some to be a risky investment at the time, as Kiva was a young robotics company with a fleet of mobile robots only capable of simple tasks. However, those simple tasks, like moving products from warehouse shelves to workers, have eliminated warehouse inefficiencies and reduced strenuous physical labor for workers. It also increased productivity by three to four times. This ability to package three or four times the amount of digital orders was a major contributing factor that enabled Amazon to keep its two-day shipping promise. 

In our emerging technologies series report that focused on robotics, we found that companies primarily used third-party vendors (55% of respondents) to develop robotics technology. However, unlike other companies, Amazon has the capital to invest heavily in promising tech providers and even to fully acquire them. Amazon’s minority stake investment in Anthropic will certainly impact Anthropic’s future, perhaps even more than it currently does considering that Amazon has been known to acquire companies in their entirety to build out its tech capabilities. As a result of these investments, Amazon has remained at the forefront of companies that are integrating emerging technologies — both internally and customer facing.

Key findings:

• In Modern Retail+ Research’s survey on emerging technologies, AI was a top technology in terms of marketer adoption and interest. At the time of the survey, chatbots and AI assistants were the No. 1 category of AI applications marketers used at 78% of respondents. Since then, generative AI has taken off and companies are finding it even easier to integrate AI into their systems. 

• Amazon has been known to acquire companies in their entirety to build out its tech capabilities. In 2012, Amazon spent $775 million to purchase Kiva Systems, a robotics company with a fleet of mobile robots only capable of simple tasks. It also increased productivity by three to four times. This ability to package three or four times the amount of digital orders was a major contributing factor that enabled Amazon to keep its two-day shipping promise. 

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