Amazon adding ads to Prime Video | Latest in Microsoft-Activision deal 

Commercials are coming to Prime Video: Advertising, it’s not just for Netflix anymore. In a bid to keep up with other streaming services and generate revenue for content, Amazon will introduce ad breaks to its streaming shows and movies in 2024.

• "We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,” the company said. 

• Prime members can pay an extra $2.99 a month to go ad-free. Read more.

Where’s Astro? Amazon tells GeekWire that its home robot is very much alive, despite its absence from the company’s devices event earlier this week.

Latest in Microsoft-Activision deal: Microsoft’s plan to sell Activision Blizzard’s cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft appears to have appeased UK antitrust regulators who previously sought to block its $68.7 billion acquisition of the Call of Duty maker.

Voyager Capital raising new fund: The longtime Seattle venture capital firm is gearing up for its sixth fund as it looks to back more enterprise software startups across the Pacific Northwest. 

“Do you think AI has the capacity to be holistic in its thought process, in spirit, soul, body and mind?” That question from the audience sparked an interesting exchange and a larger conversation during a panel featuring leading women in technology at JPMorgan Chase’s PowerHER conference Wednesday in Seattle. (Above, from left: Moderator Monika Panpaliya, head of the Global Technology Product & Agility Office for JPMorgan Chase & Co., Sinead O’Donovan, a Microsoft VP of product management, and Nancy Wang of Felicis Ventures.) Read more.

Tech Moves: Seattle startup vet Joanna Lord has a new marketing gig; Outreach engineering leader resigns; Maveron hires a CFO; and more personnel changes. 

Hot Links:

• Drivers for Amazon Flex, the company’s delivery service powered by gig workers, say they’ve been shot at while making deliveries. (NBC News) 

• Seattle’s Lego clout is showing up strong in the latest season of Fox’s Lego Masters. (The Seattle Times)