AI Takes Center Stage on Q1 Earnings Call for Big Tech Companies

Big Tech firms, including Microsoft, Google, and Meta, highlighted their progress in AI during their Q1 2023 earnings calls as the first quarter of the year draws to a close, marking the start of the earnings call season.

Earlier this week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella opened his call by stating that Microsoft Cloud – which provides infrastructure for AI development – delivered over $28 billion in quarterly revenue, up 22% (up 25% in constant currency) year-over-year. AI was mentioned over 50 times on the earnings call as Nadella listed Microsoft’s advancements in the field.

He said that Microsoft will continue to focus on investing in the new AI wave. Highlighting examples of the company’s progress, Nadella said that Microsoft’s AI infrastructure is being used by its partner OpenAI, as well as NVIDIA, and leading AI startups like Adept and Inflection to train large models.

He added that the Azure OpenAI Service saw a tenfold increase in customers from the last quarter to over 2,500. Big names such as Coursera, Grammarly, Mercedes-Benz, and Shell are among some of the customers. In addition, Microsoft’s Github Copilot, an AI-powered developer tool, has seen over 10,000 organizations, including Coca-Cola, sign up to use the tool. Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, has also reported more than 100 million daily active users.

“We are focused on continuing to raise the bar on our operational excellence and performance as we innovate to help our customers maximize the value of their existing technology investments and thrive in the new era of AI,” Nadella closed.

During Google’s earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai, provided investors with an update on the company’s recent AI advancements. Pichai highlighted several notable initiatives, including the experimental conversational AI service, Bard, and the PaLM model. He also discussed how Google was using generative AI to enhance its Search engine capabilities and mentioned the consolidation of Google Research and DeepMind into a single unit aimed at developing the most capable and responsible AI systems.

Despite Google’s recent AI advancements, the company’s Q1 earnings call results revealed mixed performance in its AI and Cloud segments. Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat said: “Resilience in Search and momentum in Cloud resulted in Q1 consolidated revenues of $69.8 billion, up 3% year over year, or up 6% in constant currency.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also discussed the key theme of AI, a field which the company is now focusing on as its metaverse unit Reality Labs continues to suffer losses. The company reported $28.6 billion in revenue and a record 2 billion daily users of the Facebook app. Zuckerberg said the company’s AI work is “driving good results” across its apps and business. He sees “an opportunity to introduce AI agents to billions of people in ways that will be useful and meaningful” and said that Meta is “no longer behind” in building its AI infrastructure.

“We’re exploring chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger, visual creation tools for posts in Facebook and Instagram and ads, and over time video and multi-modal experiences as well. I expect that these tools will be valuable for everyone from regular people to creators to businesses. For example, I expect that a lot of interest in AI agents for business messaging and customer support will come once we nail that experience,”

Zuckerberg explained.

Not giving up on the metaverse, Zuckerberg added that Meta’s AI efforts will extend to the company’s work in the virtual world, where people will “be able to create avatars, objects, worlds, and code to tie all them together.”

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