Amazon sales surge due to boost from AI and advertising

Global retail and tech giant Amazon has posted better than expected results in the first quarter thanks to an increase in advertising revenue, and improvements with artificial intelligence. Amazon's first quarter sales jumped 13 per cent to about $US143 billion. Revenue at its cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services lifted 17 per cent. Advertising sales went up 24 per cent. Unlike its tech competitors Meta and Alphabet, Amazon did declare a dividend which helped lift its shares in afterhours trading. The company finished the quarter with 1.52 million employees.