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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attends the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 9, 2025.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Amazon will report second-quarter results after the market close Thursday.

Here’s what analysts surveyed by LSEG are expecting:

  • Earnings per share: $1.33
  • Revenue: $162.1 billion

Wall Street is also looking at other key revenue metrics:

  • Amazon Web Services: $30.8 billion, according to StreetAccount
  • Advertising: $14.99 billion, according to StreetAccount

The company spooked investors in May when it warned in its earnings report that “tariff and trade policies,” as well as “recessionary fears,” could weigh on second-quarter results.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said at the time that “none of us knows exactly where tariffs will settle or when.” Jassy later said the company hasn’t seen “any attenuation of demand at this point” due to tariffs and that Amazon has taken steps to keep prices steady on its site.

President Donald Trump‘s unpredictable tariff agenda primarily poses a threat to Amazon’s sprawling e-commerce business, which accounts for the bulk of its sales. The core online stores unit is expected to post $58.98 billion in sales, according to StreetAccount. Wall Street is projecting seller services revenue to reach $38.7 billion during the quarter.

Several analysts said the tariff and geopolitical backdrop for Amazon has become more manageable in recent months, which is one of several reasons they’re optimistic about the company’s second-quarter report.

“Through the quarter, the US consumer backdrop has remained supportive as tariff concerns wane and consumers continue to spend,” analysts at Deutsche Bank wrote in a July 22 research note. The firm has a buy rating on Amazon’s stock.

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Trump’s tariffs may be giving Amazon a boost, to some extent.

The Deutsche analysts said it’s “become abundantly clear” that Amazon has gained a greater share of the U.S. e-commerce market in the face of diminished competition from ultra-cheap Chinese online retailers Shein and Temu, which is owned by PDD Holdings.

Both companies have struggled to preserve their grip on American shoppers after the Trump administration ended de minimis, a trade exemption that allowed low-value shipments to enter the country duty-free, and instituted higher tariffs on Chinese imports.

Amazon’s third-quarter guidance will give a view into whether the company expects tariff risks to continue. Analysts are projecting revenue to reach $173.3 billion in the current quarter.

Outside of retail, investors will be keeping a close eye on Amazon’s cloud business. Revenue at AWS in the first quarter grew 17%, which fell short of analysts’ estimates and was the slowest growth in a year. Analysts are projecting about the same year-over-year growth for the second period.

Jassy said in May that the cloud business would have grown faster if it weren’t for capacity constraints caused by shortages of AI chips and other components.

Amazon has pledged to spend up to $100 billion this year, largely on AI-related investments for AWS. Wall Street will be paying attention to whether Amazon reaffirms or boosts that number. AI and cloud competitor Google last week upped its capital spend to $85 billion this year as part of its second-quarter earnings.

Like other major tech companies, Amazon has been laser-focused on AI. During the quarter, Amazon began releasing an AI-upgraded version of its Alexa voice assistant and it launched a new agentic AI group in its skunkworks research and development unit.

The technology is also transforming Amazon’s workforce. In a June note to staff, Jassy said the company’s corporate employee base will shrink in the coming years as it adopts more generative AI tools and agents.

“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce,” Jassy wrote.

Amazon shares have lagged those of its tech peers this year despite its heavy investments in AI. Amazon’s stock is up 5.4% year to date, while shares of Meta and Microsoft have climbed roughly 20% over the same stretch. Apple, which has struggled with its AI development, is down about 15.5% so far this year.

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Microsoft had police remove protesters who stormed office over work with Israeli military

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Microsoft had police remove protesters who stormed office over work with Israeli military

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corp., at the Web Summit conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. The annual conference gathers key industry figures in technology.

James MacDonald | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft asked police to remove people who improperly entered a building at its headquarters in protest of the Israeli military’s alleged use of the company’s software as part of the invasion of Gaza.

On Tuesday, current and former Microsoft employees affiliated with the group No Azure for Apartheid started protesting inside a building on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, and gained entry into the office of Brad Smith, the company’s president. The protesters delivered a court summons notice at his office, according to a statement from the group.

“Obviously, when seven folks do as they did today — storm a building, occupy an office, block other people out of the office, plant listening devices, even in crude form, in the form of telephones, cell phones hidden under couches and behind books — that’s not OK,” Smith told reporters during a briefing.

“When they’re asked to leave and they refuse, that’s not OK. That’s why for those seven folks, the Redmond police literally had to take them out of the building.”

Smith said that out of the seven people who entered his office, two were employees.

While the company doesn’t retaliate against employees who express their views, Smith said, it’s different if they make threats. Microsoft will look at whether to discipline the employees who participated in the protest, Smith said.

Once inside Microsoft’s building 34, the No Azure For Apartheid protesters demanded that the company cut its ties with Israel and ask for an end to the country’s alleged genocide.

Tech’s megacap companies are doing more work with defense agencies, particularly as demand increases for advanced artificial intelligence technologies. Many of those activities were already controversial, but the issue has gotten more intense as Israel has escalated its military offensive in Gaza.

Last year Google fired 28 employees after some trespassed at the company’s facilities. Some employees gained access to the office of Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google’s cloud unit, which had a contract with Israel’s government.

No Azure for Apartheid has held a series of actions this year, including at Microsoft’s Build developer conference and at a celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary. A Microsoft director reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the protests continued, Bloomberg reported earlier on Tuesday.

Last week, No Azure For Apartheid mounted protests around the company’s campus, leading to 20 arrests in one day. Of the 20, 16 have never worked at Microsoft, Smith said.

The Guardian reported earlier this month that Israel’s military used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinians’ phone calls, leading the company to authorize a third-party investigation into whether Israel has drawn on the company’s technology for surveillance.

“I think the responsible step from us is clear in this kind of situation: to go investigate and get to the truth of how our services are being used,” Smith said on Tuesday.

Most of Microsoft’s work with the Israeli Defense Force involves cybersecurity for Israel, he said. He added that the company cares “deeply” about the people in Israel who died from the terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and the hostages who were taken, as well as the tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza who have died since from the war.

Microsoft intends to provide technology in an ethical way, Smith said.

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OpenAI says it plans ChatGPT changes after lawsuit blamed chatbot for teen’s suicide

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OpenAI says it plans ChatGPT changes after lawsuit blamed chatbot for teen's suicide

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Federal Reserve’s Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025.

Ken Cedeno | Reuters

OpenAI is detailing its plans to address ChatGPT’s shortcomings when handling “sensitive situations”
following a lawsuit from a family who blamed the chatbot for their teenage son’s death by suicide.

“We will keep improving, guided by experts and grounded in responsibility to the people who use our tools — and we hope others will join us in helping make sure this technology protects people at their most vulnerable,” OpenAI wrote on Tuesday, in a blog post titled, “Helping people when they need it most.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the parents of Adam Raine filed a product liability and wrongful death suit against OpenAI after their son died by suicide at age 16, NBC News reported. In the lawsuit, the family said that “ChatGPT actively helped Adam explore suicide methods.”

The company did not mention the Raine family or lawsuit in its blog post.

OpenAI said that although ChatGPT is trained to direct people to seek help when expressing suicidal intent, the chatbot tends to offer answers that go against the company’s safeguards after many messages over an extended period of time.

The company said it’s also working on an update to its GPT-5 model released earlier this month that will cause the chatbot to deescalate conversations, and that it’s exploring how to “connect people to certified therapists before they are in an acute crisis,” including possibly building a network of licensed professionals that users could reach directly through ChatGPT.

Additionally, OpenAI said it’s looking into how to connect users with “those closest to them,” like friends and family members.

When it comes to teens, OpenAI said it will soon introduce controls that will give parents options to gain more insight into how their children use ChatGPT.

Jay Edelson, lead counsel for the Raine family, told CNBC on Tuesday that nobody from OpenAI has reached out to the family directly to offer condolences or discuss any effort to improve the safety of the company’s products.

“If you’re going to use the most powerful consumer tech on the planet — you have to trust that the founders have a moral compass,” Edelson said. “That’s the question for OpenAI right now, how can anyone trust them?”

Raine’s story isn’t isolated.

Writer Laura Reiley earlier this month published an essay in The New York Times detailing how her 29-year-old daughter died by suicide after discussing the idea extensively with ChatGPT. And in a case in Florida, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III died by suicide last year after discussing it with an AI chatbot on the app Character.AI.

As AI services grow in popularity, a host of concerns are arising around their use for therapy, companionship and other emotional needs.

But regulating the industry may also prove challenging.

On Monday, a coalition of AI companies, venture capitalists and executives, including OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman announced Leading the Future, a political operation that “will oppose policies that stifle innovation” when it comes to AI.

If you are having suicidal thoughts or are in distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor.

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Okta raises forecast as CEO says economic conditions were ‘better than we thought’

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Okta raises forecast as CEO says economic conditions were ‘better than we thought’

Okta CEO Todd McKinnon appears on CNBC in September 2018.

Anjali Sundaram | CNBC

Okta shares rose 4% in extended trading on Tuesday after the identity software maker reported fiscal results that exceeded Wall Street projections.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: 91 cents adjusted vs. 84 cents expected
  • Revenue: $728 million vs. $711.8 million expected

Okta’s revenue grew about 13% year over year in the fiscal second quarter, which ended on July 31, according to a statement. Net income of $67 million, or 37 cents per share, was up from $29 million, or 15 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

In May, Okta adjusted its guidance to reflect macroeconomic uncertainty. But business has been going well, said Todd McKinnon, Okta’s co-founder and CEO, in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

“It was much better than we thought,” McKinnon said. “Yeah, the results speak for themselves.”

U.S. government customers are being more careful about signing up for deals after President Donald Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency in January.

“But even under that additional review, we did really well,” McKinnon said.

Net retention rate, a metric to show growth with existing customers, came to 106% in the quarter, unchanged from three months ago.

Read more CNBC tech news

Companies will need to buy software to manage the identities of artificial intelligence agents working in their environments, which should lead to expansions with customers, McKinnon said. Selling suites of several kinds of Okta software should also boost revenue growth, he said.

Management called for 74 cents to 75 cents in adjusted earnings per share and $728 million to $730 million in revenue for the fiscal third quarter. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected earnings of 75 cents per share, with $722.9 million in revenue. Okta expects $2.260 billion to $2.265 billion in current remaining performance obligation, a measurement of subscription backlog to be recognized in the next 12 months, just above StreetAccount’s $2.26 billion consensus.

The company bumped up its fiscal 2026 forecast. It sees $3.33 to $3.38 in full-year adjusted earnings per share, with $2.875 billion to $2.885 billion in revenue. The LSEG consensus showed $3.28 in adjusted earnings per share on $2.86 billion in revenue. Okta’s full fiscal year guidance from May included $3.23 to $3.28 per share and $2.850 billion to $2.860 in revenue.

Late last month, Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company that announced an expanded partnership with Okta in July, announced plans to acquire Okta rival CyberArk for about $25 billion.

“Palo Alto is going to be like, ‘You have to buy security from us, and your endpoint from us and your SIEM [security information and event management] from us and your network from us,’ ” McKinnon said. “We just think that’s wrong, because customers need choice. It’s very unlikely they’re going to get every piece of technology or every piece of security from one vendor.”

A Palo Alto spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier on Tuesday, Okta said it had agreed to acquire Israeli startup Axiom Security, which sells software for managing data access. The companies did not disclose terms of the deal.

As of Tuesday’s close, Okta shares were up 16%, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq was up 11%.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

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