(Reuters) - Amazon ( AMZN ) chief executive Andy Jassy on Thursday justified the company's billions of dollars in outlays for artificial intelligence development, saying the investment was necessary to remain competitive.

"If your mission is to make customers' lives better and easier every day, and you believe every customer experience will be reinvented by AI, you're going to invest deeply and broadly in AI," wrote Jassy in his letter to shareholders, an annual rite of passage for the top boss at the Seattle retailer.

He said substantial capital investment is necessary to obtain AI chips and build datacenters. "Our customers, shareholders, and business will be well-served by our investing aggressively now."

Like rivals, Amazon ( AMZN ) is investing heavily in generative artificial intelligence, including releasing a variety of chatbots serving sellers, businesses and consumers. Last month, after multiple delays and billions of dollars of investment, it unveiled an AI-infused revamp of its Alexa voice assistant and has said it will be rolling it out to select users in the coming weeks.

Amazon ( AMZN ) has invested about $8 billion into AI startup Anthropic and has incorporated its Claude software into what it is calling Alexa+.

The letter is aimed at shareholders, but is closely read by employees, competitors and analysts. As is tradition, Amazon ( AMZN ) included the first shareholder letter from 1997 signed by founder and chairman Jeff Bezos.