Bezos Expedition Leads $72 Million Investment in AI Data Firm Toloka

Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions is reportedly leading a $72-million investment in AI firm Toloka.

Toloka Founder and CEO Olga Megorskaya told Reuters in an interview Wednesday (May 7) that the investment was a milestone that should speed the company’s growth, particularly in the American market, and bolster its development of products through human experts collaborating with artificial intelligence (AI) agents.

“There will always be the need for control, verification, and help from human experts to ensure that the result is actually of high quality,” Megorskaya said.

According to the report, Toloka helps train and evaluate AI models using a group of human experts and testers. The company is part of Dutch AI infrastructure company Nebius Group and has worked with Amazon, Microsoft and Anthropic.

As Reuters noted, Nebius emerged from a $5.4 billion deal, finalized in 2024, that split the domestic and international assets of Russian internet giant Yandex.

Before that split, the report added, Nebius would have had trouble getting any sort of funding from the likes of Bezos because of sanctions blocking American investments in Russian firms.

Reuters added that Nebius will continue to support Toloka as a shareholder, holding a substantial majority economic stake, but giving up majority voting control.

“The important thing about this round is that we gained the needed flexibility to operate independently,” Megorskaya said, adding the company expects to eventually conduct another investment round.

In other AI news, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote about the potential of AI-powered shopping agents to become “invisible sales conversion engines” … with their “strength as a conversational interface,” capable of grasping complex requests, makes them well-suited to carry out purchases without users needing to enter a physical or digital store or leave the conversation.

This rising agentic AI commerce ecosystem is poised to help merchants advance their ambitions. Card networks, payment processors, FinTechs and AdTech startups employ tokenized credentials and established payment infrastructure to turn the traditional browse-select-purchase journey into a natural conversation that can close a sale.

“Existing technology foundations and massive infusions of capital fuel this momentum,” she added. “The enthusiasm across the payments and commerce ecosystem to support a new way of matching consumers and merchants creates mutually reinforcing tailwinds.”