Amazon built much of its device business on low prices and frequent discounts. Now the same AI-driven rush for computing capacity is forcing the company to ask shoppers to pay more.

The increases appeared overnight across Amazon’s first-party hardware lineup, from smart speakers to streaming sticks, e-readers and home networking gear. The base Echo Dot rose from $49.99 to $79.99; the 16GB Kindle climbed from $109.99 to $149.99; and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max increased from $59.99 to $84.99. Eero systems also became more expensive, while Ring products were left unchanged.

Amazon’s explanation is blunt: components have become too costly to keep absorbing. A company spokeswoman said the consumer-electronics industry is “facing significant increases in memory and storage component costs,” adding that Amazon adjusted pricing only after absorbing those increases “for as long as we could.”¹

The timing exposes an awkward divide inside the company. Amazon Web Services is benefiting from surging demand for AI infrastructure, with AWS revenue reaching $42.2 billion in the second quarter, up 37% year on year. But the boom is also tightening supplies of memory needed across the technology industry—and raising costs for Amazon’s own consumer devices.

Chief executive Andy Jassy has said Amazon expects to spend $220 billion this year, largely on AI data centers, and still may not have enough capacity to meet demand in 2026 or 2027. Rivals including Apple, Microsoft and major PC makers have likewise raised prices or cut memory configurations as the squeeze spreads.

Amazon says promotions will continue throughout the year. Yet the price changes mark a notable retreat from its long-standing cheap-hardware playbook: in the AI era, even the bargain Echo is competing for the same increasingly expensive components as the cloud.