Amazon, Google, Microsoft Guide to $590B: The Week in Quotes

Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft guided to about $590 billion of 2026 capital spending between them on 28 and 29 October, by our arithmetic from Amazon’s earnings release (about $220 billion), Alphabet’s earnings call ($195 billion to $205 billion) and Microsoft’s prepared remarks (about $170 billion for the calendar year).

Below are 16 lines the people running these companies, and several others that reported this week, said or wrote, quoted word for word from calls, releases and letters, each with the number from our coverage it sits next to.

Short explainer · AI capex quotes

A vertical news Short narrated from the published headlines and opening lines of this piece and four related FourWeekMBA pieces on Amazon, Microsoft, Google Search and Reddit.

Business Pill · Capex and Depreciation

An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on capital expenditure and depreciation. It explains the general idea only and does not discuss any company in this piece.

Demand Is Still Ahead of Supply

Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood, in the company’s prepared remarks on 28 October: “Customer demand continues to exceed available supply”. Azure grew 48% in the quarter.

Alphabet chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi, on the earnings call the same day: “given the supply-constrained environment, we started utilizing third-party compute capacity at the end of Q3 and will ramp usage in Q4”. Google Cloud revenue doubled to $30.7 billion.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, on Stripe’s Cheeky Pint podcast published on 29 October: “We always just want more compute”. On memory prices he said: “I think the invisible hand is failing right now”. Our Altman piece has the full exchange, and Sandisk reported an 85% gross margin the same day.

Intel chief financial officer David Zinsner, in Intel’s release on 29 October: “we see the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year”. Intel’s data center and AI unit earned more than its PC unit in the quarter.

The Bill, and How It Gets Paid

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy, in Amazon’s release on 29 October: “Our AWS investment in functionality and infrastructure is working, with over 39% year-over-year revenue growth in Q3 ($184 billion revenue run rate) and projected revenue growth rates of over 40% both in 2027 and in 2028”. Amazon’s third-quarter capex was $77.3 billion.

The same release: “We continue to expect 2026 cash capital expenditures to be approximately $220 billion”. Our Jassy piece worked out what that leaves for the fourth quarter.

Hood on Microsoft’s next quarter: “In Q2, we expect CapEx spend will be over $50 billion”. And on funding it: “we will access additional sources of funding when we believe it is attractive to do so”. A day later Microsoft launched its first US bond sale since 2017.

Ashkenazi on Alphabet’s cash: “Our sizable investments in technical infrastructure and inventory build of TPU systems as we scale that business will put pressure on free cash flows”. Alphabet’s free cash flow was negative $9.1 billion in the quarter.

AI Is Changing Search and Ads

Alphabet chief business officer Philipp Schindler, on the call: “the strong growth in AI mode queries had an impact because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI mode”. Google’s paid clicks grew 8%, the slowest in our series.

Reddit’s letter to shareholders, 29 October: “During October, we have seen that search traffic has dropped by more than 1 million referrals on average per week”. Reddit warned its 130 million daily users could fall.

Agents and Jobs

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, in the prepared remarks: “as agents take on higher-value work, consumption opens up business-funded demand, with spending tied directly to the value these agents deliver”. Microsoft is moving Copilot past per-seat pricing.

ServiceNow chief financial officer Gina Mastantuono, on the 28 October call as transcribed by Investing.com: “that efficiency gains means that we’re able to not hire as many people”. Our ServiceNow piece carries the full answer.

Hood on Microsoft’s costs: “Our cost guidance across both COGS and OpEx includes an estimate for the recently announced employee voluntary exit offer”. Microsoft offered buyouts to about 60,000 staff.

GoDaddy chief executive Aman Bhutani, in GoDaddy’s release on 29 October: “We are positioning GoDaddy for an agentic world”. Its Airo AI product passed a $100 million run rate.

The Structural Read

As we read the three CFOs’ lines together, Microsoft and Alphabet both describe supply as the constraint: Hood says demand exceeds available supply and Ashkenazi says Alphabet started using third-party compute capacity.

As we read the funding lines, Microsoft’s CFO said it will access additional sources of funding, and Alphabet’s CFO said TPU inventory and infrastructure will pressure free cash flows.

As we read the search and jobs lines, Schindler ties lower AI mode monetization to search growth, and ServiceNow’s CFO ties AI efficiency to hiring fewer people.

Three Implications

FOR SUPPLIERS Hood says demand exceeds available supply, and Altman said on Cheeky Pint that the invisible hand is failing on memory.

FOR INVESTORS By our arithmetic, the three 2026 capex guides add up to about $590 billion, using the midpoint of Alphabet’s range.

FOR WORKERS ServiceNow’s CFO said AI efficiency gains mean it is able to not hire as many people, and Microsoft’s cost guidance includes its voluntary exit offer.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The AI Capex Map.

The framework sets out to map the financing of AI: “How the money flows, where it cracks, what it buys, who can absorb it, and what happens when revenue can’t catch up.”

As we read it, this week’s quotes cover the first two clauses: how the money flows (cash, bonds, inventory) and where the supply is tight. The framework was published in May 2026 and does not discuss this week’s results.

What Is Not Established

The three capital-spending figures are on different bases (Amazon gives cash capital expenditures; Microsoft gives a calendar-year figure; Alphabet a full-year range), so the $590 billion total is our arithmetic, using the midpoint of Alphabet’s range, not a figure any company published. The Alphabet lines come from a live-caption transcript and the ServiceNow line from a third-party transcript; Amazon’s call was not read for this piece. None of the speakers quantified how much of their spending is for AI alone.

The Bottom Line

In their own words this week, the executives describe demand running ahead of supply, spending of about $590 billion between three companies this year by our arithmetic, borrowing to help pay for it, AI changing how search earns money, and agents changing how software is sold and how many people some companies hire.