Investor Gene Munster warned that personalized AI bots could threaten Amazon's hold on online shopping and Alphabet's grip on search, as shoppers may increasingly start with bots to find products. He cited Meta widening its retail partnerships for its Muse agent, with Walmart, Sephora and Best Buy already on board while Amazon has blocked it, and estimated current global daily bot usage at about 20 million, which he expects could reach 2 billion in three years. Alphabet's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said agents would be additive to search, though search growth slowed in the quarter with AI Mode showing lower monetization. Amazon reports third-quarter results after the bell on Thursday.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Read the original on Yahoo Finance ↗
Keywords
AMZNGOOGLartificial intelligencee-commerce
Open a keyword to see other news on the same topic.
Related tickers and likely impact
AMZN
▼ Likely negativeAmazon
Relevance: medium
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Consumer Discretionary |
| Industry | Broadline Retail |
| Market cap | $2.7T |
| Close on 10/30/2026 | 240.47 |
| Change that session | -1.36% |
GOOGL
▼ Likely negativeAlphabet Inc. (Class A)
Relevance: medium
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $4.0T |
| Close on 10/30/2026 | 279.76 |
| Change that session | -1.43% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
Related news
- Gene Munster 'More Concerned' About Amazon and Alphabet — Says AI Bots Mean Shopping Edge 'Will Increasingly Be Under Attack'
Investor Gene Munster warned that personalized AI bots could erode Amazon's hold on online shopping and Alphabet's grip on search, as bots make it easy to find exactly what shoppers want. He said Alphabet must show whether AI Overviews and AI Mode can channel search traffic into personalized bot use, while Meta already has Walmart, Sephora and Best Buy as shopping partners for its Muse agent and Amazon has blocked it. Munster estimates current global daily bot usage at about 20 million and expects it to reach 2 billion within three years. Alphabet's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said agentic experiences are 'clearly additive' to Search, though search growth slowed in the quarter due to currency and the 'lower monetization' of AI Mode.
- Amazon has a Muse problem. Is a deal with OpenAI a solution?
Laura Martin of Needham & Company said Amazon's move to block Meta's Muse shopping agent from its site is a typical defense by an incumbent, since roughly 85% of e-commerce is done on Amazon's website. She suggested Amazon consider a joint venture with OpenAI, owned 50/50, giving OpenAI access to Amazon for purchases while Amazon handles fulfillment, and said Amazon could work with several consumer AI agents rather than only one. Needham rates Meta 'hold', and Martin argued Meta moved first because other AI companies are compute constrained and have no revenue from consumer agents, so they are not yet pursuing the business.
- Elon Musk wants to start an Amazon competitor after Grok bot users say the company blocked them from placing orders
Musk and Bezos, the world's two richest people with fortunes of over $900 billion and a little under $400 billion, could compete directly in e-commerce. On October 15, a post on X claimed Amazon is blocking xAI's Grok bots from ordering, and Musk replied that maybe a competitor to Amazon should be started; the article notes it is unclear whether he was serious. According to the report, Amazon has also blocked several other AI agents, including Meta's Muse. Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham argued this is an opening for a startup to compete with Amazon, since people will want AI agents to buy things for them and won't want to use an Amazon-supplied one. Representatives for Musk and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
- Musk floats Amazon rival as AI shopping battle comes into focus
Elon Musk floated the idea of starting a competitor to Amazon on X, responding to a post claiming Amazon was blocking Grok bots from placing orders on its platform. He gave no details or concrete plans. The remarks come as AI firms explore agents that buy goods for users, and Amazon has also blocked Meta's Muse AI shopping agent. Amazon shares fell 1.7% amid a broader tech selloff, which the article says was not an apparent reaction to Musk's comments, while building a rival would also require merchants, fulfillment and changed consumer habits.
- Anthropic's IPO Is Coming: 5 Key Numbers Investors Need to Know
Anthropic has filed for an IPO, and investors may be able to buy shares as early as next month in what could be the largest IPO ever. Revenue reached $16.3 billion in the first six months of 2026, up 1,300% year over year, while the company still posted a $693 million operating loss, down from $2.1 billion a year earlier. About 20% of revenue came from two customers, and compute spending hit $8.9 billion in the first half, already more than the $7.3 billion spent in all of 2025. Anthropic estimates it may spend up to $750 billion on compute, which could drive heavy cash burn and frequent stock offerings that dilute shareholders. The article warns that investing this early is extremely risky, citing SpaceX's sharp decline after its first few trading days.
- Anthropic is leasing data centers to reduce reliance on Amazon, Google, others
Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) says it is increasingly leasing AI data centers under its Anthropic Direct initiative, to meet its large computing needs beyond capacity bought from cloud providers such as Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL). According to its S-1 prospectus made public on Monday, this hybrid model could also bring long-term economic advantages. In November 2025, the company announced a $50 billion investment in which Fluidstack will build data centers in Texas and New York. Meanwhile, data centers face opposition from communities over air and noise pollution and water use, with towns and counties issuing moratoriums or bans, and New York imposing a one-year statewide moratorium. Anthropic lists further moratoriums as a key risk factor and says it is expanding capacity internationally to reduce concentration risk in the United States.
Related markets
Latest news
- Is Intel Stock a Buy After Its Post-Earnings Plunge?
Intel shares fell sharply after hours on Thursday, from a $92.07 regular-session close to about $71, following third-quarter results. Revenue rose 21% year over year to $16.5 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.52 beat guidance, but the fourth-quarter outlook of $15.0–16.0 billion in revenue and $0.25 in EPS was weaker. Data center and AI revenue jumped 78% to $7.3 billion, while PC-related revenue fell 5% to $8.1 billion. Intel expects PC segment revenue to drop over 20% next quarter as industry PC units shrink about 12% in 2026 and 10% in 2027, and an accident that shut its Fab 28 plant in Israel also weighs on results. The author judges it is not yet time to buy, given the stock trades near 33 times expected 2027 earnings and the diluted share count is expected to be about 20% above the third quarter of 2025.
- Elon Musk 'trolls' over Binance hack, CZ bluntly says: 'I deeply respect you, please stop'
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) asked Elon Musk to stop 'trolling' the exchange after the SpaceX and Tesla CEO posted emoji that appeared to mock the cyberattack on Binance, which caused losses of 6.3 billion USD on October 29. CZ pointed out that Binance holds SpaceX shares worth over 1 billion USD, stemming from its 500 million USD investment in Musk's Twitter acquisition, though this is a tiny fraction of SpaceX's valuation of about 2,000 billion USD. The feud is not new: in November 2021, Musk called Binance's temporary suspension of Dogecoin withdrawals 'shady', and CZ responded by citing Tesla's recall of nearly 12,000 vehicles in the US.
- Jim Cramer says it's time to look beyond tech. Here are 4 consumer stocks he likes
CNBC's Jim Cramer said investors seeking to diversify away from the struggling AI trade should consider consumer staples stocks. In October the Nasdaq-100 fell almost 7% as money rotated into defensive sectors, while the consumer staples index rose 11.4%. Cramer highlighted four stocks: Kimberly-Clark (up nearly 11% in October, under 15 times earnings, 4.7% dividend yield, with a pending merger with Kenvue); Procter & Gamble (up 11%, seen as attractive after better-than-expected quarterly results, though he prefers Kimberly-Clark's lower valuation and higher yield); Constellation Brands (up 20%, about 11 times earnings, yield above 3%, showing signs of a turnaround); and Coca-Cola (up 9%, after a strong quarter driven by volume).
- Why Bright Horizons Family Solutions Stock Swooned on Friday
Bright Horizons Family Solutions (BFAM) stock fell almost 18% on Friday after the child care company cut its 2026 guidance. For the third quarter, revenue of nearly $841.5 million rose almost 5% year over year, and adjusted EPS of $1.80 beat the $1.76 analyst estimate, though revenue missed the roughly $842.7 million consensus. Full-year 2026 revenue is now expected at about $3.07 billion, down from almost $3.09 billion to just under $3.12 billion, and adjusted EPS guidance was lowered to $4.98–$5.03 from $5.05–$5.15. Management attributed the cuts to an ongoing UK regulatory safeguarding notice and a softening child care market in Australia, which prompted an internal review of strategic alternatives for that business. The article notes the stock looks cheap on valuation metrics but needs growth from its full-service centers and a resolution of the Australia situation to draw renewed investor interest.
- What Are Dell Investors Betting On?
A Trefis analysis says Dell Technologies (DELL) trades at 26.6 times adjusted earnings over the twelve months to July 2026, so buyers at that price are betting on much higher profit. Consensus forecasts put fiscal 2027 profit at $18.5 billion, versus $7.05 billion in fiscal 2026, and sales at $195 billion, up from $113.5 billion. Revenue grew 71% in the first half of fiscal 2027, and management raised its full-year sales guidance to $192 billion from $167 billion, with AI server revenue expected at $74 billion and a record $95 billion AI backlog. The main risk the article identifies is the net margin: consensus assumes 9.5% in fiscal 2027 versus 6.2% in fiscal 2026, while AI servers carry lower margins and Dell is supply constrained on DRAM and NAND memory chips. If Dell misses that margin, the article says investors would be paying for profit not yet shown over a full year, making the stock more of a gamble.
- Veteran fund manager revamps Alphabet stock price target after brutal sell-off
Alphabet shares plunged after disappointing earnings, but a veteran fund manager still sees reasons to be positive on the Google parent. The manager has revised the stock's price target following the sharp sell-off.
Get the briefing on Telegram or Zalo
Join the Upside Telegram channel or Zalo group for the Vietnam stocks and gold briefing at 8:00 and 19:00 (Vietnam time) on trading days, plus a weekly wrap on Saturday morning.