Amazon Gives Alexa for Shopping More Than 100 New Functions
Amazon has widened what its Alexa for Shopping tool can do, from subscriptions to billing questions. The company says shoppers using it spend 50% more per order.
Amazon says U.S. customers who use Alexa for Shopping spend 50% more per order than those who do not. The company has also just given the tool more than 100 new shopping capabilities.
The 50% claim
CEO Andy Jassy gave the figure to analysts on the third-quarter earnings call. He added that Amazon expects to work with horizontal agents, meaning AI assistants not tied to one store. Even so, he said, he believes Alexa for Shopping will be the main agent customers use to shop on Amazon.
Amazon says more than 400 million customers have used the tool over the past 12 months. It launched in May and took the place of the Rufus shopping assistant.
Third-quarter results
Retail Dive calls Alexa for Shopping a bright spot in the quarter's report. Online store net sales rose 2% year over year to $68.5 billion. Physical store sales grew at the same rate, to $5.7 billion.
New tasks, announced Oct. 29
In an Oct. 29 post, Amazon listed what the tool can now do. Shoppers can create and change registries, manage subscriptions and change delivery instructions. It can also answer questions about billing and payments.
U.S. customers get them in the Amazon Shopping app and online.
Rajiv Mehta, vice president of conversational shopping, said in a company blog post: "Our vision for Alexa for Shopping is to make every part of shopping as convenient as possible."
Tension with outside AI agents
An AI agent is software that acts for a user, not just answers questions. Amazon has already clashed with another tech company over AI agents. In September it asked Meta to remove its e-commerce site from Meta's Muse AI agent experience. Amazon said it got no advance notice and gave no permission.
Last year Amazon took Perplexity to court. Perplexity's Comet agent had made Amazon purchases on consumers' behalf.
Source: Retail Dive