The most recent round of tech earnings isn’t quite over yet, but with Apple’s numbers added to the heap last week, probably the most influential platforms for fashion, beauty and e-commerce have all weighed in — and by and huge, Big Tech appears to be back. Kind of.

Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $89.5 billion beat expectations, as did other top-line figures from fellow giants Google, Meta and Amazon. But this time, it took more to impress investors, who cared less about raw numbers than the businesses’ plans, particularly in an era of artificial intelligence that’s driving radical changes in areas like shopping and fashion.

Even an apparent rebound in internet marketing seemed somewhat anticlimactic, as a recent measure of success began to take shape. Within the immediate wake of estimate-topping results, shares still stumbled or remained flat when platforms couldn’t persuade investors that they’d meet the AI moment.

The broad brush strokes paint a portrait of a tech sector in flux, because it continues facing a recent reality where merely dominating search, computer software, e-commerce, social media, mobile devices and more isn’t any longer enough. Firms like Google, Amazon and Meta — all of which have spent years touting significant chops in AI and machine learning — were seemingly caught off-guard because the AI explosion ignited over the past yr. Cue the mad race to catch up, with a furious array of launches and updates amid critical organizational changes.

That matters to everyone that relies on these platforms, including fashion, for which crucial takeaway could also be this: The race for AI, which is already evident in ad products and a growing array of other tools, is barely just getting began.

Take Google, for example.

Google Versus Microsoft

Parent company Alphabet had a terrific quarter overall, with revenue and income jumping 11 percent to $76.7 billion and 25 percent to $21.3 billion, respectively. Google Cloud hit $8.4 billion with 23 percent growth, while ad sales shot up 18 percent, nearly reaching $60 billion in revenue. That features, as chief financial officer Ruth Porat put it, “meaningful growth in search and YouTube,” with $44 billion and $7.95 billion, respectively. Apparently corporations are spending money on online ads again.

Wall Street must have been euphoric. As a substitute, shares slumped. That’s because expectations were high for the AI-driven cloud unit and, despite all of its growth, it still dissatisfied.

Compare that to Microsoft. Its overall $52.9 billion revenue haul and seven percent growth paled as compared to Alphabet’s figures, but its cloud efforts performed higher. Investors were pleased to see Intelligent Cloud revenue grow 16 percent to $22 billion, including a notable 27 percent boost in Azure and other cloud services, due to “higher-than-expected” AI consumption, in response to the corporate.

That’s just the newest chapter in Google and Microsoft’s battle over AI dominance, in a consequential, maybe even existential, fight that goes beyond cloud services.

Google has been investing deeply in AI and machine learning for years to hone all the pieces from ad products and search results to Google Assistant and Android cameras, in addition to recent products and features in development. This yr, it also introduced recent AI shopping features, including a serious overture to the sweetness industry with the expansion of augmented reality hair color and makeup try-ons inside Google Shopping. The tech giant can have a novel opportunity on this space now, after Snap Inc. has officially stepped back from offering enterprise AR.

One other Google feature for virtual try-on, this time for attire, uses AI to generate photos of real models wearing different garments. That is an emerging space that has been within the works for years by e-tail juggernauts like Amazon and Walmart, however the AI boom appears to have upped the stakes, not to say the interest: On Monday, MadaLuxe Group’s Sandy Sholl and Adam Freede officially announced an AI-powered virtual try-on and styling platform called Zelig and $15 million in series A funding from Hilco Global, Bezikian Zareh and others.

The competition for virtual try-ons is just certainly one of many AI-fueled battlefronts for Google, nevertheless, because it also developed others for image generation, music and more.

It’s price noting that not all of its efforts are hits, though. Google Bard, its own version of ChatGPT, arrived earlier this yr with deep flaws including factually inaccurate responses. Meanwhile Microsoft, a serious backer and partner of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, released BingChat, which uses the identical technology.

Now Google appears to be taking stock of its operations and making some hard decisions, including yet one more wave of job cuts, this time to its Google Assistant team. Reportedly, as much as 20 data scientists were just laid off.

(Google’s not alone: In recent days, the Bay Area has seen several tech corporations shear off employees, including e-commerce marketplace Faire, which reportedly plans to put off roughly 250 employees, reducing its total workforce by some 20 percent.)

Amazon

On the cloud front, neither Microsoft nor Google has caught as much as Amazon, a minimum of not yet, but Microsoft’s Azure gained a whole lot of ground this yr. This puts a whole lot of pressure on Amazon Web Services, which is why shares didn’t immediately skyrocket on the big third-quarter numbers coming out of Amazon. The corporate pulled in $143.1 billion in revenue and $9.9 billion in earnings, and its promoting arm pumped $12.06 billion in revenue, a 26 percent leap over last yr. But Amazon Web Services failed to fulfill expectations, each in current revenue and within the projections. Since then, the stock has climbed, but that’s as a result of the strength of the e-tailer’s other businesses.

Ultimately, AI has change into probably the most crucial metric by which the tech platforms are being judged, often overshadowing other successes — even areas previously considered critically vital. What also became evident is the necessity to tell apart forms of AI and product offerings. Because they’re not all the identical.

When it comes to buzz, generative AI leads the pack, due to its ability to create original artworks, text, music and more. In keeping with Amazon, “the AWS team continues to innovate and deliver at a rapid clip, particularly in generative AI, where the mixture of our custom AI chips, Amazon Bedrock [offer] the best and most flexible solution to construct and deploy generative AI applications.”

Consider Bedrock as a grab-and-go store for AI models, where corporations can scoop up whatever model matches their needs and plug of their data. It’s not alone. There’s a concerted push to make generative AI development easier with no-code solutions, allowing practically any start-up, brand or would-be platform to create their very own solutions.

There’s potential for a whole lot of opportunity in that scenario, but in addition loads of chaos. Even the U.S. government, which is historically slow in addressing recent technologies, seems to acknowledge that. This emerging reality just prompted President Joe Biden to sign an executive order that sets out some early guardrails on AI, since it’s fueling “warp speed” change.

Apple

Even Apple, which shouldn’t be within the business of creating AI tools for people or businesses, faced AI questions during its latest earnings call on Thursday.

While its efforts aren’t public-facing, in response to the corporate, the iPhone maker is definitely “investing quite a bit” in generative AI, and a few outlets assert that the corporate is constructing its own ChatGPT competitor. Nevertheless it’s quick to indicate that it’s not within the business of offering AI solutions, only using the tech to enhance its existing products and features. “We view AI and machine learning as fundamental technologies, and so they’re integral to virtually every product that we ship,” said Tim Cook, chief executive officer.

But those use cases could grow, as its Vision Pro mixed reality headset prepares to launch early next yr, and more intelligent, recent features could help beef up Apple Watch sales — which apparently flagged, as a part of its accessories, wearables and residential group, during a mixed period that saw lagging Mac and iPad sales offset by growth in iPhone revenue.

Meta

Meta isn’t within the cloud business either, nevertheless it’s no less invested in cranking out AI tools. That wasn’t the large takeaway from Meta’s earnings call, nevertheless.

The Facebook and Instagram parent boasted $34.15 billion in revenue that surged 23 percent over last yr and greater than doubled its earnings, with income coming in at $11.58 billion. Apparently CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “yr of efficiency” worked. Meta’s promoting business has come roaring back, because the parent of Facebook and Instagram broke Wall Street’s third-quarter 2023 earnings forecasts. Revenue rocketed 23 percent to $34.15 billion, as earnings doubled to $11.58 billion.

Zuckerberg also excitedly talked about what the corporate has been as much as, including Meta’s new edition of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, the Quest 3 virtual reality headset and a variety of software and tools, including Emu, which may create top quality images or stickers, and the brand new smart assistant Meta AI.

The techie smorgasbord continues with AI Studio, a collection that enables corporations to make their very own custom AI chatbots, and that’s only the start. “We launched an early alpha of business AIs, in order that eventually every business can have an AI to interface with customers to do sales and support,” Zuckerberg said. “We laid out the plan to launch creator AIs next yr so every creator can have an AI their fans can engage with to assist them construct out their community.”

The CEO said AI shall be the corporate’s biggest area of investment next yr. That’s huge for a corporation that didn’t blink over losing a whopping $46.5 billion on its metaverse bet, or a minimum of the Reality Labs division that fosters it, since 2019.

In 2024, Meta plans to push business bots to more corporations, and that shall be “a vital focus,” he added. So will its work with generative AI. The corporate’s Llama 2 models, which permit developers to create their very own AI tools and experiences using natural language, saw greater than 30 million downloads in a single month. Meanwhile internally, AI-driven recommendations for feeds, Reels videos, ads and integrity systems boosted time spent on Facebook and Instagram — by 7 and 6 percent, respectively — in addition to its ad business.

There’s virtually no aspect at Meta that AI doesn’t touch, including business messaging, which is “the subsequent major pillar of our business,” Zuckerberg said. Because it is, greater than 600 million chats between people and businesses occur every day across Meta’s platforms.

Meanwhile, Meta has been making gains with its current offerings as well. In keeping with the corporate, Reels, which drove greater than a 40 percent boost in time spent on Instagram since launch, is graduating from experiment to a “core a part of our apps.” Threads, Meta’s Twitter clone, marks three months with slightly below 100 million monthly lively users now.

And, in case anyone was curious, none of this implies Meta has given up on its metaverse bet. Nonetheless, its hard to overlook the proven fact that Meta’s gamble reportedly lost the corporate a whopping $46.5 billion since 2019, when it formed the Reality Labs division in command of it.

Even so, the corporate’s latest hardware speaks to its ongoing development. Likely constructing on the thrill of the upcoming Apple Vision Pro, Meta is promoting the brand new Quest 3 headset because the world’s “first mainstream mixed reality device,” while it talks up the brand new Ray-Bans as the primary smart glasses that comes with Meta AI.

On a broad basis, metaverse builders see AI as a useful tool that advances their platforms. Meta is outwardly no exception.

The brand new fashion frontier is being defined increasingly by smarter, more intelligence-driven tools and consumers who’re growing AI-savvier by the minute. Within the near term, the tech surely allows individuals, creators and types of all sizes to make use of increasingly sophisticated tools, intensifying competition. That’s a snapshot of the present moment within the AI era, and it could be nothing in comparison with what the subsequent phase will bring, once Big Tech sinks its teeth in.