Amazon’s empire rests on its low-key approach to AI

AMAZON’S SIX-PAGE memos are famous. Executives must write one every year, laying out their business plan. Less well known is that these missives must always answer one question in particular: how are you planning to use machine learning? Responses like “not much” are, according to Amazon managers, discouraged.

Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence (AI) which mines data for patterns that can be used to make predictions. It took root at Amazon in 1999 when Jeff Wilke joined the firm. Mr Wilke, who today is second-in-command to Jeff Bezos, set up a team of scientists to study Amazon’s internal processes in order to improve their efficiency. He wove his boffins into business units, turning a cycle of self-assessment and improvement into the default pattern. Soon the cycle involved machine-learning algorithms; the first one recommended books that customers might like. As Mr Bezos’s ambitions grew, so did the importance of automated insights.