Amazon will release Q3 earnings October 29 as AI spending faces scrutiny

Amazon will release third-quarter results after the market close on October 29, 2026, followed by an earnings call at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET. Watch the official webcast at www.amazon.com/ir. Investors will be weighing expectations for faster cloud growth against the spending required to supply computing power for AI.

The call is scheduled to discuss Amazon’s Q3 financial results; it is separate from the after-close earnings release. Amazon says the webcast audio and associated slides will remain available through its investor relations site for at least three months. That gives readers who cannot listen live a way to revisit management’s explanations alongside the financial figures.

Analyst expectations: another acceleration at AWS

The benchmarks below are forecasts, not Amazon’s reported results. In her October 29 CNBC preview, Annie Palmer cited LSEG estimates for company-wide earnings and revenue, and StreetAccount estimates for AWS and advertising. Those figures set out the expectations Amazon will face when it publishes its numbers.

• Company-wide: LSEG analysts expect $202.31 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings of $1.96 per share.
• Cloud: StreetAccount expects Amazon Web Services revenue of $45.48 billion, up 38% from a year earlier.
• Advertising: StreetAccount puts expected revenue at $20.82 billion, providing another business benchmark alongside the cloud figures.

The expected AWS growth rate compares with 37% in the previous quarter. If achieved, it would mark a fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating revenue growth. Bloomberg consensus figures cited by Yahoo Finance put AWS revenue slightly higher, at $45.68 billion, but also forecast 38% growth. The two surveys differ on the dollar estimate, not the expected growth rate.

The cloud question goes beyond sales

CEO Andy Jassy has described strong demand extending beyond this quarter. On an Andreessen Horowitz podcast last week, he said Amazon’s large blocks of cloud capacity were largely sold out for 2027, with a good portion of 2028 also sold. He said Amazon still reserves some capacity for on-demand use and services such as Bedrock.

Profitability is a separate test. In Daniel Howley’s October 29 Yahoo Finance preview, UBS analyst Stephen Ju forecast an AWS operating margin of 46% for 2027, compared with a 39% consensus estimate. That measure tracks the share of revenue left as operating profit. Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein also argued that chip efficiency and revenue growth could produce better-than-expected margins.

KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson pointed to two possible advantages: Amazon’s Graviton chips and Bedrock, its service for using AI models. In his assessment, Graviton offers price and performance benefits for agent workloads, while Bedrock’s model-switching tools let AWS benefit from demand for both open-weight and closed-weight models. Those are analyst arguments for future growth, not findings from the upcoming results.

Amazon’s existing 2026 spending guidance

Capital expenditure forecast

$200 billion→$220 billion

billion dollars

Amazon raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure forecast in the prior quarter. This is the existing guidance, not a new forecast from the Q3 release.

The spending baseline and the cash cost

The next spending outlook will be measured against that already enlarged budget. Analysts surveyed by StreetAccount expect Amazon’s capital expenditure to exceed $280 billion in 2027. That is Wall Street’s projection, not company guidance. Investors will be listening for management’s comments on AI spending as Amazon brings more data centers online to meet demand.

The cash pressure is already visible. In July, Amazon reported negative free cash flow of $7.6 billion over the trailing 12 months, versus positive $18.2 billion a year earlier. CNBC linked that deterioration to the infrastructure buildout. FactSet estimates cited in its preview point to a $9.9 billion cash outflow for the current quarter, making cash generation another benchmark beside AWS sales and margins.