Amazon delivered solid quarterly results on Thursday afternoon in the US, joining mega-cap peers Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta in handily topping forecasts.

Revenue of $127.36 billion rose 9% YoY in Q1, and easily beat the $124.7 billion the Street expected.

The company said current-quarter sales will be between $127 billion and $133 billion. That’s probably good enough. Headed in, consensus for Q2 was right in the middle of that range.

Assuming the midpoint, which is probably conservative, top-line growth would be around 6% for Q2. Q1’s top-line beat was the second in a row.

“There’s a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy,” Andy Jassy, who recently fired thousands of people, said, of the results.

On a quick read, there was “a lot to like” about how Amazon is “delivering” for shareholders too, although the company spooked investors on the call with remarks about the trajectory for AWS, which beat Q1 estimates with $21.35 billion in sales. That represented 16% YoY growth in constant currency terms. The long-running slowdown is ongoing, but as was the case with Microsoft’s Azure numbers on Tuesday, the AWS print was sturdy enough to placate nervous investors — initially. Later, though, Amazon said AWS sales decelerated further this month.

Jassy, sounding every bit like a 2017 blockchain bandwagon-jumper, spiced the press release with AI references. Companies are more cautious on their spending given macro uncertainty, but that’s ok, because AWS is “building long-term relationships both by helping customers save money and enabling them to more easily leverage technologies like Large Language Models and Generative AI,” Jassy said, touting “uniquely cost-effective machine learning chips” and an AI code companion, CodeWhisperer.

Amazon “likes the fundamentals” in AWS and Jassy sees “much growth ahead” for his brainchild. You could scarcely conjure a more investor-friendly pitch than AWS meets LLMs and generative AI. Insert your “Shut up and take my money!” memes.

Jassy wasn’t finished. He attributed “robust” growth in Amazon’s ad business almost entirely to the company’s “ongoing machine learning investments,” which he said “help customers see relevant information.” On the call, he said machine learning is “deeply ingrained in everything we do.”

Nobody wants to miss the AI wave. To recap, Satya Nadella is bringing together “the world’s most advanced AI models [and] the world’s most universal user interface to create a new era of computing,” Sundar Pichai is “introduc[ing] important product updates anchored in deep computer science” and Mark Zuckerberg’s AI work is “driving good results across [Meta’s] apps and business.”

Of course, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon all insist their AI obsession isn’t distracting from their respective core missions. Recall that Google’s “North Star” is still “providing the most helpful answers for users.” Zuckerberg, lost as he may be in yesterday’s fad, and eager as he surely is to get lost in today’s, still understands the importance of growing Meta’s “community,” which is to say Facebook, Instagram and so on. Amazon on Thursday likewise reiterated its own guiding principle: “Obsessing over how to make customers’ lives better and easier every day.”

Notably, Amazon’s cost-cutting efforts are plainly paying off. Operating income was $4.77 billion, up 30% YoY. The Street expected just $3 billion. Margins easily beat. Looking up and down the report, I didn’t see a single miss on any line.

None of the above is to say the shares have to rally on the Q1 results and, as noted, the AWS remarks on the call weren’t well received. But what I would say is that if your bear case for US equities was predicated on assumptions about mega-cap earnings misses, you’re going to be waiting around for another quarter. At least.