The story. Amazon’s advertising business grew 12% to $19.6 billion in the third quarter, down from 22% and 26% in the first two. AWS grew 39.3%, its fastest in nearly five years. (AdExchanger, 29 October 2026)
The numbers in this piece
01What happened
- Ads slowed. Amazon Ads revenue was $19.6 billion, up 12% year over year, after 22% in Q1 and 26% in Q2.
- Amazon blames timing. CEO Andy Jassy attributed the slowdown to Prime Day moving from Q3 to Q2 and to no NBA games on Prime Video in Q3.
- AWS accelerated. Revenue grew 39.3%, and Jassy said AWS could become a trillion-dollar revenue business in five to 10 years.
- Net income dipped. It was $20.7 billion against $21.2 billion a year earlier, when $9.5 billion in pre-tax Anthropic gains lifted the base.
- Cash flow turned negative. Trailing 12-month cash flow was negative $42.4 billion, against positive $14.8 billion a year before. The stock fell 7% after hours.
- Agentic shopping is no threat to ads, yet. Asked whether it hurts ads, Jassy said “the answer is no”, and that few customers shop this way yet.
- The ad product is AI-led. Amazon Ads Agent, launched in September, combines the ads console and Amazon DSP to run and optimise full-funnel campaigns.
02What it means inside a GAM network
Amazon is both a retail media seller and a buyer of open-web supply through Amazon DSP. A 12% quarter after two much faster ones still leaves the unit growing, and the timing explanation is checkable: Q4 will show whether growth returns.
For a publisher, the line to watch is Jassy’s “yet”. If shoppers start through assistants, product discovery and the ad inventory around it move off pages where ads are sold today. His view is one executive’s account on one earnings call. The read that this matters for open-web demand is APH desk analysis.
Amazon's ad growth fell by half in one quarter and the company says the calendar explains it.
03What publishers should do about it
04The bottom line
Amazon’s ad growth fell by half in one quarter and the company says the calendar explains it. Q4 is the test, and the open question for publishers is who gets the shopper first.