Amazon Stock Jumps Nearly 4 Percent After Evercore ISI Raises Price Target on AI Driven Sales Growth

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. climbed nearly 4% Friday after investment firm Evercore ISI raised its price target on the e-commerce and cloud computing giant, pointing to new survey data showing artificial intelligence tools are already driving additional purchases on the company's retail platform.

Amazon stock traded at 266.18 dollars, up 9.92 dollars, or 3.87%, as of 12:19 p.m. Eastern time on the Nasdaq, according to Google Finance data. The move added to a stretch of strong performance for the stock in recent weeks following the company's second-quarter earnings report earlier this month.

Evercore ISI raised its price target on Amazon to 355 dollars from 315 dollars while maintaining its outperform rating on the stock, according to a research note from the firm. The new target implies substantial additional upside from the stock's level heading into Friday's trading session.

The revised target was based in part on findings from Evercore's 14th annual U.S. online retail survey, which the firm said showed early but meaningful evidence that Amazon's investment in agentic artificial intelligence tools, including its Alexa+ assistant, is translating into incremental sales. According to the survey, 57% of Alexa AI users reported buying a product they had not previously been aware of, a figure the firm's analysts described as new evidence that AI-driven discovery is beginning to pay off commercially for the company.

"For the first time, survey evidence shows that agentic AI is actually additive for Amazon Retail, with 57% of Alexa AI users buying a product they were not previously aware of," Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

The survey also pointed to a recovery in usage of Amazon's same-day delivery service, with 49% of respondents reporting they had used the option, alongside data showing that Amazon Prime members continue to spend significantly more than non-Prime customers, at a rate the firm pegged at roughly 3.1 times higher.

Evercore's bullish case extended beyond Amazon's retail operations to Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud computing division, which the firm said now accounts for roughly 60% of Amazon's total operating income and has posted year-over-year operating income growth of 64%. The firm also cited Amazon's continued buildout of AI data center capacity, including a large-scale power infrastructure project in Sweden, as a factor that reduces risk around the company's ability to meet growing demand for AI computing resources.

Friday's rally builds on a broader run of strength for Amazon shares since the company reported second-quarter results earlier this month. In that report, Amazon posted total revenue of 200.6 billion dollars, up 20% from a year earlier and above analyst expectations of roughly 196 billion dollars. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 1.97 dollars, well ahead of the 1.82 dollars analysts had expected, while AWS revenue surged 37% year-over-year to 42.2 billion dollars, marking the cloud unit's fastest growth rate in 18 quarters.

On the earnings call following that report, Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy told investors the company still lacks sufficient computing capacity to meet current demand. "But even at that amount, we will still not have enough capacity to meet all the demand we have in 2026, and I believe this dynamic will also be true in 2027 too," Jassy said, referring to the company's raised capital expenditure projection of 220 billion dollars for the year, up from an earlier estimate of 200 billion dollars. "In fact, the demand we already have for 2028 is striking," he added.

Amazon's stock has also been supported this year by developments tied to its investment in artificial intelligence company Anthropic and by regulatory approval for its self-driving vehicle subsidiary, Zoox, which received federal clearance from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to commercially deploy thousands of purpose-built robotaxis without steering wheels.

Despite the recent gains, some analysts and investors have flagged concerns about Amazon's valuation and spending trajectory. The company's sharply higher capital expenditure plans, driven in large part by rising costs for the memory chips used in AI infrastructure, have pushed the company's projected full-year free cash flow into negative territory, a dynamic that some market watchers have said warrants continued scrutiny even as the stock rallies. Filings have also shown continued insider stock sales by Amazon executives, including Jassy and Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky, as well as previously disclosed plans by founder Jeff Bezos to sell shares under a structured trading plan.

Even so, Wall Street's broader view of Amazon has remained largely positive in recent weeks, with multiple firms reiterating buy ratings and raising price targets following the company's earnings report. Evercore's revised outlook adds to that trend, framing Amazon's combination of AI-driven retail growth and continued AWS momentum as a case for further multiple expansion in the stock.