Amazon said on November 6 that a subset of U.S. customers can now text Alexa for Shopping, its AI shopping agent, with the option expanding to millions more customers in the coming weeks.
What happened
In its announcement, Amazon says invited customers accept the terms, link a phone number and message a contact called “Alexa Shopping.” The agent can reorder items, build a cart from a photo of a recipe, track prices and buy when a price reaches a target. Amazon says more than 400 million customers have used Alexa for Shopping in the last 12 months, and that use of its agentic features has grown more than eight times since the start of the year. A request started by text is meant to carry over to the app, the website and Alexa devices. Rajiv Mehta, vice president of Conversational Shopping at Amazon, said: “Now with Alexa for Shopping, your personal shopping agent is just a text away.”
Why it matters
The agent remembers preferences, and the announcement’s examples include “only show me organic options.” Preferences stay on file, so a stated filter can apply to later requests without the shopper repeating it. Amazon also says the agent can surface products from stores across the web through Shop Direct. Our earlier coverage of Amazon Ads adding branded conversations and of Amazon folding its DSP and ad console into one agent covers the advertiser side. The announcement does not mention ads or sponsored placements in the text thread.
One thing to ask
In our reading, brands with products that people reorder have the most to check. Ask your Amazon Ads representative whether orders placed by text appear in campaign reporting, and whether product titles and attributes are what the agent reads when it filters for a stated preference. Then compare your listing’s attributes against a preference such as organic or vegan, so the filter does not drop the product.
Source: Amazon
