Amazon swings to $42.4 billion free cash outflow as AI spending surges

AWS posted its fastest growth in nearly five years, but investors focused on the bill for building it Amazon just showed that a business can grow fast and still worry its shareholders. The company’s free cash flow over the trailing twelve months swung to an outflow of $42.4 billion as of September 30, 2026. A year earlier, that same measure was an inflow of $14.8 billion. The culprit is a capital spending spree aimed squarely at artificial intelligence infrastructure, and Wall Street noticed. Shares closed down 4.3% on October 29, the day Amazon released its third-quarter results. They then slid further after the bell, falling 7% in after-hours trading. Strong growth, bigger bills Start with the good news, because there was plenty of it. Total revenue grew 12% year-over-year to $201.9 billion for the quarter. Amazon Web Services, the cloud division that rents out computing power to other companies, did even better. AWS revenue rose 39.3% to $46 billion, its fastest growth rate in nearly five years. In the third quarter alone, Amazon spent $77.3 billion on property and equipment. That is more than double what it spent in the same quarter a year earlier. Free cash flow is the money l...