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Amazon’s Zoox Robotaxi Debuts Free Rides on Las Vegas Strip

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Amazon-owned Zoox has officially opened its robotaxi service to the public in Las Vegas, offering free rides on and around the Strip while awaiting regulatory approval to charge fares. The move positions Zoox against established rivals like Alphabet’s Waymo and Tesla in the race for autonomous ride-hailing dominance.

Key Details

  • Vehicle design: Unlike competitors, Zoox uses a purpose-built, fully autonomous pod with no steering wheel or pedals. Passengers sit facing each other, resembling a futuristic shuttle.

  • Free service: Current rides are complimentary to help familiarize the public and gather feedback.

  • Fleet: About 50 vehicles are in Zoox’s Las Vegas fleet, with thousands of riders each week during its casino-based test loop.

  • Expansion: Zoox plans to extend services soon to San Francisco, with future rollouts in Miami, Austin, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.

Industry Context

  • Waymo already runs paid robotaxi services in multiple U.S. cities with a fleet of around 2,000 vehicles.

  • Tesla operates a small number of robotaxis with safety drivers in Austin and has begun a Bay Area ride-hailing service.

  • Uber is also entering the space, integrating autonomous vehicles into its network through partnerships.

  • Commercializing robotaxis has been tough, with regulatory scrutiny, protests, and high costs forcing many startups to exit the field. Amazon acquired Zoox for $1.3 billion in 2020, betting on the long-term payoff.

Outlook

Zoox expects to begin charging fares within months once it secures regulatory approval. With its unique design and Amazon’s backing, Zoox could emerge as a serious challenger in the still-nascent robotaxi market, provided it scales safely and wins public trust.

Oracle Cloud Orders Near $500 Billion, Shares Jump 27%

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Oracle (ORCL.N) announced Tuesday that it expects its booked revenue in cloud infrastructure to surpass half a trillion dollars, sending shares soaring 27% after hours. The surge reflects rising demand for its low-cost AI cloud infrastructure and strong multi-cloud partnerships.

Key Highlights

  • Booked Revenue (RPO): Jumped 359% year-on-year to $455 billion in Q1 (ending August 31).

  • Future Growth: CEO Safra Catz said upcoming multi-billion-dollar deals are expected to push RPO beyond $500 billion.

  • Revenue Forecast: Oracle projects 77% growth in OCI revenue this fiscal year to $18B, rising to $144B over the next 4 years.

  • AI Integration: Customers can now directly connect databases to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok via Oracle Cloud.

  • MultiCloud Strategy: Partnerships with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft drove a 1,529% increase in first-quarter multi-cloud revenue. Oracle plans 37 new datacenters, bringing the total to 71 with hyperscaler partners.

Market Impact

  • Shares: Up 45% YTD, boosted further by the after-hours spike.

  • Contracts: Four multi-billion-dollar deals with three customers supported overall Q1 revenue growth of 12% to $14.93B.

  • Q2 Guidance: Total revenue expected to rise 12–14%, with cloud revenue growing 32–36%.

Analyst Views

  • Analysts see Oracle emerging as a key AI cloud player, despite being smaller than hyperscaler rivals.

  • “Oracle is not just keeping up but actually leading the way in the cloud space,” said Melissa Otto, S&P Global Visible Alpha.

  • Jacob Bourne, eMarketer: “Enterprises are clearly eager for cost-effective AI cloud tools, and Oracle is positioning itself to capture that demand.”

Anthropic Reaches $1.5B Settlement With Authors Over AI Training

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Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit from authors who accused the company of using pirated books to train its AI chatbot Claude, according to a filing in San Francisco federal court on Friday. The settlement, which still requires judicial approval, is being described by plaintiffs as the largest copyright recovery in history and the first major resolution of its kind in the AI era.

Under the deal, Anthropic will destroy downloaded copies of more than 7 million pirated books stored in a central library and establish a $1.5 billion fund—equivalent to about $3,000 per 500,000 downloaded works, though the amount could rise if more books are identified. While the settlement ends claims over the copying of works for training, it leaves open potential future lawsuits regarding AI-generated outputs.

The lawsuit, filed last year by authors including Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, alleged that Anthropic—backed by Amazon and Alphabet—unlawfully scraped millions of books from pirate sites to build Claude’s training dataset.

Judge William Alsup previously ruled that Anthropic’s use of the works for model training qualified as fair use, but storing the pirated material in a central database violated copyright law. A trial scheduled for December could have exposed Anthropic to damages in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Author advocates hailed the agreement. The Authors Guild’s CEO, Mary Rasenberger, called it “a vital step in acknowledging that AI companies cannot simply steal authors’ creative work to build their AI.”

The case is a watershed moment in the ongoing legal battles between AI developers and copyright holders, with other high-profile cases against OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta still pending. Courts remain divided on whether training AI on copyrighted content constitutes fair use, ensuring the debate is far from over.