Big Tech Learns How to Monetise AI

Big Tech Learns How to Monetise AI THE BELAMY Weekly Newsletter of AIM Monday, Nov 03, 2025 | By Siddharth Jindal Now, subscribe to our Digital & Print Editions > Big Tech just wrapped up one of its strongest quarters in years, and the numbers share a common driver. AI is now embedded across products, platforms and profit and loss statements. From Google's record-breaking $100 billion quarter to Microsoft's AI-driven cloud expansion, Meta's superintelligence ambitions, and Amazon's AWS resurgence, tech giants are not only just talking about AI but also cashing in on it. The week closed with a fresh pecking order on Wall Street. NVIDIA claimed the crown as the world's most valuable company, crossing the $5 trillion mark, while Microsoft and Apple comfortably settled into the $4 trillion club. Google Crosses $100 Billion Alphabet shattered expectations with $102.3 billion in revenue, up 16% year-over-year (YoY). Google Services brought in $87.1 billion, a 14% lift, while Google Cloud increased 34% to $15.2 billion, driven by surging demand for AI infrastructure. "Alphabet had a terrific quarter, with double-digit growth across every major part of our business," CEO Sundar Pichai said.  He credited the company's full-stack approach to AI—from Gemini models to TPUs—as the backbone of that success. Gemini now processes seven billion tokens per minute, while its app reached 650 million monthly active users. Google's paid subscriptions topped 300 million, led by Google One and YouTube Premium. Alphabet's AI infrastructure push shows no signs of slowing. The company unveiled A4X Max instances built on NVIDIA's GB300 chips and teased its next-gen TPU, Ironwood. Capital expenditures could reach $93 billion this year, almost entirely directed towards AI and data centres. Meanwhile, even quantum computing got its moment in the spotlight. Pichai revealed the new Willow quantum chip runs 13,000x faster than top supercomputers, while chief scientist Michel Devoret took home a Nobel Prize in Physics. Microsoft Azure Powers Record Cloud Momentum Microsoft extended its AI-fueled streak, reporting $77.7 billion in revenue—up 18% YoY. The cloud business remained the star, with $49.1 billion in total cloud revenue and a staggering 51% surge in remaining performance obligations to $392 billion. "Our planet-scale cloud and AI factory is driving broad diffusion and real-world impact," CEO Satya Nadella said. He said the company plans to double its global data centre capacity within two years and increase AI compute capacity by over 80% this year. Capital expenditures reached $34.9 billion, with roughly half allocated to short-lived assets such as GPUs and CPUs for Azure expansion.  Azure itself grew 40%, and Microsoft renewed its OpenAI deal through 2030, adding another $250 billion in Azure contracts. With 900 million AI users and 150 million Copilot users, Microsoft's goal to make AI productivity mainstream is paying off. Meta's Superintelligence Ambition Meta delivered another stellar quarter, with $51.24 billion in revenue, up 26% YoY, as its family of apps reached 3.5 billion users daily. Instagram surpassed three billion monthly active users, while Threads hit 150 million daily users. More than a billion people now use Meta AI each month, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted at the launch of a frontier model soon. Behind the scenes, Meta is quietly building its AI foundation—investing $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, appointing Alexandr Wang to lead its Superintelligence team, and poaching top AI talent from OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic. Meta also announced its 25th data centre in the US, in El Paso, Texas—a $1.5 billion and one GW project—and committed a massive $600 billion through 2028 to expand US infrastructure, front-loading capacity for the coming AI era. Amazon's AWS Roars Back  Amazon closed the quarter with $180.2 billion in net sales, up 13% from $158.9 billion a year ago. AWS revenue rose 20% to $33 billion, marking its fastest growth in nearly three years.  The company spent $34.2 billion in capex this quarter, with plans to reach $125 billion this year, up from $83 billion in 2024, as it doubles down on cloud and AI growth. AWS's agentic AI platform, AgentCore, is gaining serious traction, with over one million downloads and enterprise users like Sony and Ericsson deploying AI agents to automate complex workflows. Meanwhile, its Transform migration tool has saved clients 7,00,000 hours of manual work since May. "Our builders are excited," Jassy said. "AgentCore is an enabler." On the infrastructure front, Amazon added 3.8 GW of power in the past year, more than any of its rivals. Project Rainier, its AI compute cluster, now runs 5,00,000 Trainium2 chips, set to double by year-end. "We're now double the power capacity AWS had in 2022—and we'll double again by 2027," Jassy said. The Trainium2 chips, designed for AI workloads, have become a multibillion-dollar business, with Anthropic using them to train its next-gen model cloud.   AIM Network Deep Dive >> In this episode of Front Page, we unpack Canva's game-changing move—the full integration of Affinity, now completely free for over 250 million users. The new Canva × Affinity Creative OS brings together pro-grade design precision and real-time, AI-powered collaboration. [Webinar Alert] AIM x Polestar Innovator Session: Are You Agent-Ready? Join Ankit Rana, chief innovation officer at Polestar Analytics, and Siddharth Poddar, chief product officer at Polestar Analytics, as they break down what it truly means to be "agent-ready". Click here to know more. [Event Alert] Global integrated risk assessment firm Moody's is set to host its invite-only event 'Moody's India Open House' on Friday, November 7, at The Ritz-Carlton in Bengaluru's Ashok Nagar. Click here to know more. Join us at the Dentsu Global Services Developers' Meet Up 2025 to explore this powerful synergy that's reshaping innovation. Engage with industry leaders, discover cutting-edge tools and gain insights into how this convergence is powering the next era of digital transformation. 📍 November 22 – Bengaluru 📍 December 6 – Pune Apple's AI Era Is Here Last but not least, Apple too had a good quarter. The Cupertino-based tech giant wrapped up fiscal 2025 with a record-breaking finish—$102.5 billion in quarterly revenue, up 8% YoY and $416 billion for the full year.  AI is now the core of Apple's next chapter. "We're bringing intelligence to more of what people already love about our products and services, making every experience even more personal, capable and effortless," CEO Tim Cook said. AI dominated the conversation across Apple's product lines. The new M5 and A19 Pro chips, packed with neural accelerators, are driving what Cook called "the very best place to experience the power of AI".  The M5 MacBook Pro now delivers 3.5× faster AI performance than its predecessor, while the new M5 iPad Pro brings what Apple described as a "massive boost in AI performance". On the software side, Apple Intelligence is now live across devices, introducing features like live translation, visual intelligence, Workout Buddy and AI writing tools to make the ecosystem more intelligent and intuitive. A more personalised Siri, powered by Apple's in-house foundation models, is on track for 2026. CFO Kevan Parekh said Apple is ramping up AI spending, with operating expenses rising 11% on increased R&D. The company has also committed $600 billion over four years to bolster US manufacturing, silicon and AI development. The Bigger Picture Across Silicon Valley, AI has officially moved from moonshot to mainstay. Whether it's Alphabet's Gemini, Microsoft's Copilots, Meta's superintelligence or Amazon's Trainium-powered AI clusters, the message is the same. AI isn't a product line anymore; it's the profit engine. As these companies invest billions to build the digital foundations of the future, one question looms large: Who will own the intelligence layer of the world's next economy? Now, subscribe to our Digital & Print Editions > For Brand collaborations, reply to this email or write to info@aim.media You received this email because you signed up to the updates from AIM. Click here to unsubscribe if you do not want to receive emails from us.