Three distinct strategic philosophies have emerged in AI. OpenAI pursues research breakthroughs. Google consolidates under DeepMind. Amazon bets that when models commoditize, the winners will be those who can serve AI cheapest at enterprisescale.
OpenAI: Research-First. Pursue frontier capabilities, monetize through products.
Google: Lab-First Integration. Consolidate under DeepMind, leverage distribution.
Amazon: Infrastructure Mastery. Own chips, cloud, models – optimize the full stack.
Amazon’s Distinctive Bet
Amazon is not trying to out-research Google or out-product OpenAI. They’re betting model capabilities will converge – and when they do, the differentiator becomes cost, reliability, and scale.
This is the “commoditize the model, own the distribution” playbook: Books commoditized content (Amazon.com). Computing commoditized servers (AWS). AI commoditizes models (Trainium + Nova).
The Anthropic Wild Card
Amazon’s $8B Anthropic investment provides modelleadership, safety alignment, and an acquisition option. Now they’re in talks to invest $10B+ in OpenAI too. The AI race costs too much for clean competitive lines.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
