Amazon (AMZN) is set to release quarterly results after the bell on Thursday following Alphabet’s impressive showing and continuing a major earnings week for Big Tech just ahead of the US presidential election.

The company is expected to offer updates on its cloud growth and AI developments, as well as the expansion of its digital ads business.

Here’s what Wall Street is expecting for some of Amazon’s most significant metrics in the company’s fiscal third quarter, according to Bloomberg data:

• Revenue: $157.29 billion expected ($143.08 billion in Q3 2023)

• Adjusted earnings per share: $1.16 expected ($0.94 in Q3 2023)

• Amazon Web Services revenue: $27.49 billion expected ($23.06 billion in Q3 2023)

• Ad revenue: $14.25 billion expected ($12.06 billion in Q3 2023)

The performance of Amazon’s lucrative cloud business will be top of mind for investors as the e-commerce giant competes to maintain its dominant position and integrate new AI tools to generate additional revenue.

Similarly to its cloud rivals Microsoft (MSFT) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Amazon is pouring resources into data infrastructure to keep up with enterprise demand and position itself for the rush of new AI tools and development. Amazon executives have said that its AI business has already generated billions of dollars for its cloud unit. And the company expects to boost investments for AWS services, including generative AI tools. Amazon’s cloud business is on track to generate more than $105 billion for the year.

"Much of the anticipation is riding on AWS and whether the cloud business will see ongoing acceleration as it did in previous quarters," said Sky Canaves, principal analyst at eMarketer, in a preview note ahead of earnings. “Amazon has been investing wisely to hold its dominant position in the market and there’s still a great deal of runway for enterprise infrastructure migration to the cloud, so it’s not a matter of if but of when."

Industry watchers also expect Amazon’s booming advertising segment to show strength. But even as the company reported solid overall growth last quarter, Wall Street punished the stock for failing to meet sales expectations, including falling short on ad revenue.

Bank of America analysts wrote in a preview note that further advertising deceleration and a slower-than-expected ramp of the ad rollout on Prime Video could pose risks to the company. But Amazon is still in the early stages of developing video ads.

Arun Sundaram, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, maintains a longer-term bullish view, describing Amazon as a “compelling and durable multi-year profit and free cash flow (FCF) story.” But he acknowledged several risks to the company, including legal and regulatory challenges, rising e-commerce competition, and accelerated investments in Prime video content and generative AI.