Amazon vs. Microsoft: Which Cloud Computing Behemoth Is the Better Artificial Intelligence (AI) Buy Today?
Keithen Drury, The Motley Fool
Sun, August 16, 2026 at 9:50 AM GMT+5:30
4 min read
- MSFT
-0.30% - AMZN
-0.94% - NVDA
-0.06%
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are two of the biggest names in artificial intelligence (AI). Both of these companies have taken a similar path, choosing to integrate AI into their own products but utilize other providers’ models instead of creating their own. They each also have a thriving cloud computing business, benefiting from rising AI workloads
But which one of these two makes for the better buy? Let’s take a look at the fourth- and fifth-largest companies in the world, and see which makes the most sense for your investment dollars
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Both companies have a wide-ranging business
Microsoft’s business is quite broad, ranging from business productivity software to gaming hardware and software to cloud computing. Microsoft has an iron grip in many of the industries that it’s in and a massive number of clients that cannot afford to cut Microsoft’s software even if times get bad. This makes Microsoft a pretty safe business to invest in, as it will likely be OK regardless of economic conditions
Amazon is in a similar boat, as its commerce business has become the most popular online shopping destination, and it has countless devoted clients that utilize its services every day
Both Microsoft and Amazon have rock-solid cloud computing businesses too that are thriving in the AI build-out, and each of them is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to increase capacity to meet demand
While each business has its ups and downs, nothing points to Microsoft’s or Amazon’s base business being better than the other. As a result, I’m scoring this category as a tie
Winner: Tie
Both companies are growing at a similar pace
From a revenue growth standpoint, Microsoft has long enjoyed a lead over Amazon, but that changed during the most recent quarter
MSFT Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts
This boost is primarily because Amazon’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is starting to really accelerate its growth, posting a 37% pace in the third quarter after several years of delivering growth in the 20% or so range. Considering we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg in AI spending and cloud computing growth due to that spending, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon maintains that lead moving forward
