AWS, Amazon’s B2B operation, is expanding access to the company’s new Alexa for Shopping AI agentic technology to other retailers as an alternative to third-party operations, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Alexa for Shopping combines the capabilities of Amazon’s exclusive AI agent Rufus and Alexa+, the generative AI upgrade of the original Alexa voice assistant. In making Alexa for Shopping more generally available, Amazon appears to be building on an argument the company’s CEO Andy Jassy recently made to the effect that retail AI agents, because of their access to resources such as shopping records and consumers’ expressed preferences, have an advantage over third-party alternatives available in the market despite Amazon’s investment in them.
Alexa for Shopping enables retailers outside Amazon to tap into AWS technology and learnings directly. To help other retailers better engage with their customers, the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, a global team of specialists that helps customers design, build and launch AI solutions, is packaging those learnings into what it has dubbed the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant.
The new AI function helps sellers visualize and grow their businesses in real time, Amazon stated. Sellers can generate personalized, interactive constructs that bring together their business data, insights and recommended actions. As developed, the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant shares the same foundation as Alexa for Shopping with elements included that a retailer can tailor to specific catalogs, as well as its own customer base and shopping environment. As customized in each case, the agent matches the retailer’s brand voice and domain expertise. Retailers get the technical foundation, from architecture guidance, starter code and support from AWS experts and system integrator partners, allowing retailers to launch their unique conversational shopping experiences in weeks rather than the years it would take if starting from scratch.
Chat agents can surface recommendations based on shoppers’ needs, making it easier for customers to navigate retailer catalogs. As AI agents become the primary interface for shopping decisions, Amazon asserted, retailers face the critical choice to build their own artificial intelligence presence or risk becoming dependent on general-purpose answer engines that don’t specifically serve their brands or customers. Amazon insisted the business case is compelling, with conversational shopping sessions converting at 3.5 times the rate of traditional keyword searches. Because retailers possess deep vertical knowledge about their products, customers and categories, no general-purpose AI can match what the AWS Agentic Shopping Agent brings to the table, Amazon declared.
AWS ASA connects with AWS services, including Amazon Bedrock, AgentCore and OpenSearch, which have been validated through billions of real shopping interactions on amazon.com, Amazon emphasized. Retailers adopting AWS ASA get a technical foundation refined through use on amazon.com while keeping their competitive advantages from proprietary customer insights, domain knowledge and brand relationships.
In the build up to the shopping agent’s general launch, Amazon worked with Kate Spade, which used AWS ASA to create its own conversational shopping experience. On April 13, Tapestry launched the Kate Spade AI Gift Concierge. With the Kate Spade rollout, Amazon indicated, the shopping assistant became the first production-ready such function to tap Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, which was purpose-built for the moment in shopping when emotions run high but confidence runs low, gift buying. Because 53% of shoppers report stress during gift purchases, the agent engages shoppers in natural dialogue about occasion, recipient and style to take uncertain intent and deliver curated, confident product recommendations.
