Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTJennifer Saibil, The Motley FoolFri, July 17, 2026 at 10:45 AM GMT+2 5 min readAmazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been one of the best-performing stocks ever on the market, but it's not so hot right now. It's underperforming the S&P 500 with a 7% year-to-date increase, right smack in the middle of the "Magnificent Seven" stocks.One Wall Street analyst sees Amazon stock gaining 50% over the next 12 months. If that were to happen, Amazon would reach $4 trillion in total value. Here's how it could work.Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »Opportunities in AIAmazon's biggest opportunities today are in artificial intelligence (AI). It was in a position to harness the opportunity when AI exploded almost four years ago, since its cloud services company, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is the largest of its kind, accounting for nearly 30% of the global market, according to Statista.Image source: Amazon.This business is growing at the rate of an AI upstart, which is basically what it is. However, it's leveraging Amazon's backing and cash to get ahead.Some examples of recent performance: Spending on Bedrock, AWS's signature AI building platform, increased 170% sequentially in the 2026 first quarter, and the number of developers using Kiro, AWS's agentic AI coding tool, more than doubled.This trend is also driving growth into AWS as a whole, which had been slowing. AWS sales increased 28% year over year in the first quarter, the highest growth in 15 quarters, and on a base close to twice the size of what it was 15 quarters ago."We have never seen a technology grow as rapidly as AI," said CEO Andy Jassy.Adventures in e-commerce and more