Amazon surges; Monness, Crespi, Hardt sees 'more stable' AWS
Noah Berger
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares surged more than 10% on Friday after the tech giant reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results and guidance, leading investment firm Monness, Crespi, Hard to note the strong results from its cloud unit, AWS.
Analyst Brian White, who has a buy rating and boosted his price target on Amazon (AMZN) to $170 from $136, noted that AWS has become "more stable" and it looks as if growth has started to stabilize. 
"The tone of the call was upbeat with Amazon leveraging a leaner cost structure and experiencing stability at AWS," White wrote in an investor note.
Additionally, Amazon (AMZN) management highlighted the number of use cases it has for artificial intelligence, with Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky saying, "It is going to be at the heart of what we do." 
White pointed out that AWS has made a number of generative AI related announcements in recent weeks, including AWS HealthScribe, adding Cohere as a foundation model to Amazon Bedrock and AWS Generative AI Innovation Center in June.
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