Amazon now lets you chat with Alexa to shop online
What's the story
Amazon has introduced a new feature, allowing customers to interact with its AI assistant, Alexa, through text messages. The move is aimed at enhancing the shopping experience on its platform. The e-commerce giant said selected US customers will receive a text invitation to enable this feature. Once activated, they can use natural language queries to shop on Amazon via Alexa's text agent.
Feature capabilities
New text agent expands Alexa's shopping capabilities
The new text agent expands on Alexa's recent shopping-focused upgrades. It can handle lists, track prices, search for items online, compare products, and check order statuses.
Users can even upload an image of a product or person wearing an outfit to find similar listings on Amazon.
Over time, Alexa will learn user preferences and suggest items accordingly.
Market strategy
Strategic move by Amazon ahead of holiday shopping season
The launch of this feature comes just before the holiday shopping season, a strategic move by Amazon.
The company had recently blocked Meta's AI shopping agent, Muse, from accessing its marketplace.
It claimed that the tool appeared to access its online store without authorization and stored customer credentials.
In March, Amazon also won a court order blocking Perplexity's shopping agent, Comet. However, a US appeals court overturned the ban in August, and the case is still pending.