New York, Feb 10, 2026, 08:02 EST — Premarket
- Amazon shares dip in premarket trade after a report said AWS is planning a marketplace for publishers to sell content to AI firms
- The idea lands as publishers push for clearer rules and fees for AI use of online material
- Investors are still weighing Amazon’s stepped-up AI infrastructure spending and what it buys in returns
Amazon.com shares edged down 0.8% in premarket trading on Tuesday to $208.72, after a report said the company is laying groundwork for a marketplace that would let publishers sell content to firms building artificial intelligence products.
The timing matters. AI systems are being trained on, and generating answers from, large volumes of text and media, and publishers have been pressing for usage-based compensation and tighter terms when their work is used.
That fight has become a live input into costs for AI developers and cloud platforms. Any move that standardizes licensing could help clear a bottleneck — or expose how expensive “clean” content becomes.
The Information report said Amazon has signaled the plan to publishing executives and that AWS circulated slides ahead of an AWS conference on Tuesday that referenced a content marketplace alongside Bedrock and Quick Suite. Amazon said it had “nothing specific to share,” and pointed to its long-standing relationships with publishers. Microsoft said last week it was working on a Publisher Content Marketplace, a licensing hub that displays publishers’ usage terms. 1
A separate cloud supply deal is also keeping attention on Amazon’s infrastructure buildout. STMicroelectronics said it expanded a multi-year, multi-billion dollar commercial engagement with AWS, and issued warrants to AWS for up to 24.8 million ordinary shares, exercisable over seven years at an initial price of $28.38. “This strategic engagement establishes ST as an important supplier to AWS,” ST CEO Jean-Marc Chery said. 2
Amazon’s stock has been sensitive to anything that touches AI economics. On Feb. 5, the company projected 2026 capital spending of $200 billion, up from $131 billion in 2025, prompting investor questions about the payback period for AI data centers and chips. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said then: “Amazon has to invest at these levels just to stay in the race.” 3
For now, Tuesday’s report is about structure, not numbers. Investors will look for hints on who pays, what gets licensed, and whether publishers treat a marketplace as a default route or just another negotiating table.
There’s an obvious risk case. Publishers may push for high fees or restrict what can be used, while AI firms may resist terms that make unit economics worse. Legal and regulatory pressure around copyrighted material could also shift quickly, forcing rewrites of whatever framework emerges.
Traders will also watch whether Amazon gives any concrete timeline or product detail around the marketplace idea at the AWS gathering, and whether it links licensing more tightly to its AI tools and cloud contracts.
Beyond company-specific headlines, the next macro catalysts are close. The U.S. Employment Situation report for January is due Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 8:30 a.m. ET, followed by the January Consumer Price Index on Friday, Feb. 13, at 8:30 a.m. ET — both data points that can swing bond yields and, by extension, rate-sensitive megacap tech. 4
