Barclays is forecasting a notable pickup in Amazon's cloud business as the corporate world increases spending on artificial intelligence, particularly on so-called agentic AI workloads. The bank says Amazon Web Services is primed for a faster growth phase driven by rising expenditure from major AI developers and broader enterprise adoption.
In its outlook, Barclays projects AWS revenue growth reaching roughly 34% in the third quarter of 2026 - a rate it says sits above consensus - before easing thereafter. The bank describes a scenario in which improving visibility on cloud demand and public-market activity among AI developers help refocus investor attention on AWS as a potential catalyst for Amazon's equity valuation.
Barclays noted that Amazon's stock performance has been relatively muted over the past few years and suggested that clearer momentum in AI could unlock value. The bank acknowledged near-term investor concerns such as the impact of fuel prices on shipping costs and other short-term items, but maintains that AWS acceleration, potential initial public offerings from leading AI labs, and growing enterprise interest in agentic AI could shape the narrative going forward.
A central element of Barclays' thesis is Amazon's long-term agreement with OpenAI. The bank estimates that this relationship might result in approximately $138 billion of spending over a seven- to eight-year period. Barclays expects spending from the deal to ramp gradually beginning in 2026, with a more visible contribution from the second quarter of that year onward.
Barclays also pointed to rapid expansion at Anthropic, reporting that the company's annual recurring revenue rose sharply in early 2026 as enterprise customers adopted its AI tools. The bank expects Anthropic's spending on AWS to scale meaningfully during the year.
Reflecting these developments, Barclays raised its AWS revenue forecast for 2027 by 5% and reiterated its view that cloud growth should remain ahead of consensus through 2027. The firm estimates that AWS revenue tied to AI could more than double to exceed $10 billion by the end of 2026, and grow to as much as $75 billion by 2028.
To support that demand, Barclays said Amazon is positioned to gain share in AI infrastructure through partnerships with leading AI labs and by expanding compute capacity. The bank expects Amazon to roughly double its infrastructure capacity by 2027, primarily to accommodate AI workloads.
Barclays characterized the longer-term narrative as shifting toward AI-driven growth, saying that better cloud revenue visibility and potential public listings of AI companies could contribute to a re-rating of Amazon's shares. The bank's assessment ties the company's near-term execution on capacity expansion and its partnerships with AI developers to the outlook for AWS revenue and the extent to which AI-related spending will translate into material earnings and cash flow improvement over the coming years.
Contextual note - Barclays' assessment stresses timing: the bank expects a gradual ramp of AI-related spending beginning in 2026 with clearer contributions visible from the second quarter of that year. It also highlights sizable multi-year spending expectations tied to the OpenAI agreement and strong early-2026 revenue growth at Anthropic as evidence of rising enterprise AI demand.