Amazon Stock Tumbles on Cheaper AI Model Rollout

Amazon's stock fell by about 1.1% on September 28 to $246.84, just six days after introducing its cheaper AI model, Claude Opus 5.5, through Bedrock Elasticity. The new pricing structure offers a 20% reduction in costs per token compared to the previous version, with input tokens priced at $4 per million and output tokens at $20 per million.

Cheaper AI calls could potentially bring Amazon more customers, but it also means less revenue per task. The company will need to see if heavier usage can make up for the difference in revenue.

The introduction of Claude Opus 5.5 has raised questions about whether Amazon's growth and margins will be impacted by this move. According to Anthropic, a typical workload costs about 40% less due to the model using fewer tokens.