Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) investors are looking for updates on the tech giant’s cloud business, ad revenue growth and signals on consumer health heading into the holidays as inflation continues to impact spending for corporations and consumers.

Shareholders are eagerly seeking insights into how Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud provider, compares to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), both of whom recently reported slowed growth in their cloud businesses for the quarter ending June 30. Amazon had previously acknowledged a decrease in AWS growth, attributed to business clients reallocating their spending to cut costs.

Tom Forte, a senior research analyst at financial firm D.A. Davidson Companies, suggests that cloud computing, specifically Microsoft’s Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS, has significant potential to gain substantial advantages from businesses showing interest in artificial intelligence.

As consumer spending declines, companies invested in AI and cloud tools are rethinking their expenses, which will affect cloud computing growth, Forte explains.

During its first-quarter call in April, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said that he expects the tech and retail giant’s cloud business to slow as its enterprise clients became more “cautious in their spending.”

Investors also want to see how Amazon’s advertising business intersects with more language models and generative AI. The company’s advertising business was seeing “robust growth” due to its machine learning investment, Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in the first-quarter earnings call.

Investors will also compare Amazon’s ad business with Google, which reported a 3.3% increase in advertising revenue to $58.1 billion on Tuesday despite a broader advertising pullback.

Ad sales for Google’s YouTube video service unit rose 4.4% to $7.67 billion compared to last year.

Amazon’s advertising business recorded net sales of $9.51 billion in the first quarter. Investor estimates from Refinitiv indicate an expected increase to $10.3 billion for the advertising segment in the second quarter.

Regarding retail, Amazon investors are curious about the company’s strategies to maintain consumer engagement on its platform, especially considering the slowdown in discretionary spending, evident from a mere 0.2% nominal increase in U.S. retail sales for June.

Investors want to know Amazon’s plan to improve e-commerce profitability for the rest of the year. Prime Day sales won’t be included in the second-quarter results, but the event saw record sales, and another Prime event is planned for the fall.

MORE THIRD-PARTY SELLERS

Amazon’s profit margin was 46.77% in the first-quarter. Analysts expect its margins to reach 46.53%, according to Refinitiv.

“The big focus point will be on improving profitability and the hope is that e-commerce margins will improve year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter,” said Arun Sundaram, vice president of equity research at CFRA.

Since the first-quarter, Singapore-based Shein and China’s Temu launched marketplace models in the United States in an effort to compete for Amazon’s shoppers and vendors.

Amazon is increasing the number of third-party sellers on its platform, which has helped the retailer’s ad business. Vendors can purchase ad space in search results and use other tools to catch customers’ attention in an ocean of products.

“The number of third party sellers selling on Amazon is increasing and if that continues, more of them will likely advertise on Amazon,” Sundaram said.

Amazon’s first-quarter operating income was $4.77 billion a 74.4%% increase from $2.74 billion in the fourth-quarter and a 30.1% increase from last year.