Amazon deploys generative and agentic AI across shopping platform

Amazon announced on November 18, 2025, a comprehensive update on its artificial intelligence shopping features, revealing adoption metrics that demonstrate significant customer engagement across multiple AI-powered tools deployed throughout the year. The e-commerce platform now offers what it describes as the broadest retail selection with hundreds of millions of products, including more than 300 million items available with fast, free delivery for Prime members across more than 35 categories.

The company has transformed its traditional search functionality through machine learning systems that understand customer intent beyond keyword matching. These AI-powered systems analyze the full context of shopper queries, processing signals including reviews, price, availability, delivery speed, return rates, and browsing history to deliver personalized results.

Adoption metrics across AI features

More than 250 million customers have used Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant, this year, according to the announcement. Monthly users increased 140% year-over-year while interactions grew 210% year-over-year. Customers who use Rufus during shopping journeys convert at rates exceeding 60% higher than those who do not use the assistant.

Review highlights receive hundreds of millions of impressions weekly. Customers who engage with review highlights increased 100% year over year, demonstrating growing adoption of the AI-generated summaries that consolidate customer sentiment from multiple reviews.

Hear the Highlights, which expanded from hundreds of products at launch to millions of products currently, has been used by millions of customers who have streamed more than seven million minutes of audio content. Nearly half of all customers who access the feature listen to full episodes of the conversational audio summaries covering product information, reviews, and web-sourced data.

Nearly 20% of customers who created Interests prompts added a recommended item to their cart. The feature, launched on March 26, 2025, allows customers to create personalized shopping prompts using natural language descriptions of mainstream or unique interests.

Photo searches in Amazon Lens have more than doubled since 2023. The launch of Lens Live on September 2, 2025, increased engagement in Amazon Lens by 13%, according to the announcement. The enhanced visual search tool delivers real-time product scanning and instant matches through integration with Rufus directly in the camera experience.

Billions of personalized size recommendations are generated each month for customers shopping apparel and footwear. The system considers fit preferences, product details including style and size charts, and customer reviews to suggest appropriate sizes.

Alexa+ and agentic shopping

With Alexa+, customers engage in deeper shopping conversations that result in three times more on-device purchases compared to the classic Alexa experience, according to the announcement. The enhanced voice assistant provides personalized recommendations and can track deals on items in shopping carts or wish lists.

Products available through Buy for Me, Amazon's agentic AI experience that purchases items from brand websites not available in Amazon's store, increased from 65,000 at launch to over half a million presently. The platform shows selection found both on and off Amazon, according to the announcement. When customers search for brands in the Amazon Shopping app, they see results from Amazon's store along with additional relevant products from other stores labeled "Shop brand sites directly."

The agentic approach represents a significant shift in e-commerce functionality. Amazon's position on third-party AI shopping agents became evident on November 4, 2025, when the company issued a legal demand to Perplexity requiring the AI startup to prevent Comet browser users from making purchases through Amazon's platform. CEO Andy Jassy told investors during the company's October 30, 2025, earnings call that Amazon maintains conversations with potential third-party AI agent partners while emphasizing the need for solutions that preserve customer experiences.

Product discovery and research tools

Rufus, described as an all-in-one AI assistant for shopping, answers shopping questions, provides personalized recommendations based on shopping history, tracks prices, and shops agentically on behalf of customers. Users can instruct Rufus to "Buy this dress when it drops to $75" or "Order both pairs of headphones I browsed yesterday." The assistant researches purchases, digitizes handwritten lists, finds deals, and provides styling recommendations. Rufus appears in the Amazon Shopping app through a chat bubble with sparkles, on product detail pages via suggested questions, and in Amazon Lens Live.

Interests automatically notifies customers when new products, restocks, or deals matching specific prompts become available. Customers create prompts in their own words describing mainstream or unique interests. Sample prompts include "Model building kits and accessories for hobbyist engineers and designers" or "latest pickleball gear and accessories." The feature appears as an Interests button in the Me tab of the Amazon Shopping app.

Amazon Lens provides visual search functionality for finding similar items. Lens Live displays matching items and helpful information instantly in camera view. Users point their camera at items spotted in person or on social media to find visually similar products available in Amazon's store. The camera icon in the search bar activates the feature.

Help Me Decide, launched on October 23, 2025, analyzes browsing activity, searches, shopping history, and preferences to recommend appropriate products. If customers browse several similar products without purchasing, the "Help Me Decide" button appears at the top of product detail pages or in "Keep shopping for" sections on the homepage and Me tab. The feature provides one primary recommendation along with explanations highlighting relevant features, customer review insights, and alignment with previous purchases.

Review highlights appear directly above reviews on product detail pages where multiple customers have left feedback. The AI-generated summaries provide short overviews of customer sentiment based solely on content from customer reviews, automatically updating as new feedback arrives. Customers can click on specific product aspects like "speed" to see how many times customers mentioned that aspect, positive and negative review sentiment, and direct quotes from customers.

Hear the Highlights offers conversational audio summaries of product information, reviews, and information from across the web. The feature appears on select product detail pages in the Amazon Shopping app directly under the product image for customers who prefer to listen rather than read product details and customer reviews.

Shopping Guides help customers research unfamiliar product categories by explaining key features, clarifying confusing terminology, and consolidating important information. The guides automatically appear in "Keep Shopping For" and at Amazon.com/guides for categories including TVs, area rugs, dog food, running shoes, and face moisturizers.

Personalized size recommendations appear on apparel and shoe detail pages underneath product images. The system suggests the best size by considering fit preferences, product details including style and size chart, and customer reviews.

Technical infrastructure and iteration

Amazon has used AI to improve customer shopping experiences for over 25 years, beginning with machine learning algorithms for book recommendations. The company takes an iterative approach to building and launching AI experiences, often rolling them out in beta to test what resonates with customers. If another feature better solves a customer pain point, the company evolves and moves on quickly, according to the announcement.

The AI-powered search capabilities have evolved from matching keywords to understanding the full context of shopper intent. These advancements in traditional search models enabled rapid growth and experimentation in next-generation search experiences. The new AI-powered features make shopping more convenient by helping customers discover and evaluate products in whatever way feels most natural, whether through conversational queries, visual search, or audio content.

Amazon's advertising revenue reached $15.7 billion in the second quarter of 2025, representing a 22% year-over-year increase, according to seller forum discussions. The platform's emphasis on AI-powered features coincides with announcements of free AI prompts for sponsored ad campaigns on November 11, 2025, and AI targeting capabilities for DSP campaigns on November 12, 2025.

The company announced that it values feedback from customers on AI-powered shopping features, using input to guide product roadmap development and feature evolution. Amazon stated it will continue to test, learn, and develop features that help customers discover and evaluate products, making shopping more convenient.

Industry context and competitive positioning

The deployment of comprehensive AI shopping features positions Amazon within broader e-commerce industry trends toward AI-mediated shopping experiences. Microsoft launched the Copilot Merchant Program on April 18, 2025, creating an avenue for retailers to integrate product catalogs with its AI assistant platform. OpenAI launched instant checkout capabilities for ChatGPT on September 29, 2025, with Shopify integration enabling transactions through AI chatbots.

Amazon Prime Day 2025 extended to four days for the first time, running from July 8-11, 2025. The event integrated AI features including Rufus for personalized deal recommendations, Interests for custom prompts based on individual preferences, and AI-powered Shopping Guides for research at optimal prices. More than one million customers in the United States had access to Alexa+ during the event, according to June 17, 2025, reporting.

The personalized recommendation approach raises questions about product discovery and visibility for sellers. As Amazon's AI systems make more purchase recommendations based on browsing history and preferences, products that align with algorithmic criteria may gain advantages over alternatives. Marketing professionals need to understand how their products appear not just to human shoppers but to algorithmic recommendation systems.

The AI implementation builds on Amazon's extensive product catalog carrying hundreds of millions of products. For one customer, a red single-serving coffee maker with an easy-to-clean filter may make the most sense; for another customer, an industrial-sized stainless steel multi-purpose espresso machine may be the perfect choice, according to the announcement. The shopping experience uses personalization designed to help customers find and discover appropriate products through signals including reviews, price, availability, delivery speed, return rates, and browsing history.

Timeline

• February 1, 2024: Amazon unveils Rufus conversational AI shopping assistant
• July 12, 2024: Rufus expands to all US customers
• September 19, 2024: Amazon implements AI-driven personalization for product recommendations
• October 13, 2024: Amazon launches AI Shopping Guides for over 100 product types
• March 26, 2025: Interests feature launches with personalized shopping prompts
• June 10, 2025: Video Generator gains advanced AI motion for high-action product ads
• July 8-11, 2025: Prime Day extends to four days featuring AI shopping tools
• September 2, 2025: Lens Live launches with real-time scanning and AI assistant integration
• October 23, 2025: Help Me Decide feature launches using AI to recommend products
• November 4, 2025: Amazon demands Perplexity stop AI shopping in Comet browser
• November 11, 2025: Amazon launches free AI prompts for sponsored ad campaigns
• November 12, 2025: Amazon introduces AI targeting for DSP campaigns
• November 13, 2025: Amazon launches closed beta for AI agent advertising integration
• November 18, 2025: Amazon announces comprehensive AI shopping feature adoption metrics

Summary

Who: Amazon deployed AI shopping features across its platform, serving more than 250 million Rufus users this year along with millions using additional AI-powered tools including Lens Live, Review Highlights, Hear the Highlights, Help Me Decide, Interests, Shopping Guides, and Buy for Me.

What: The company announced adoption metrics demonstrating significant engagement across multiple AI features. Rufus monthly users increased 140% year-over-year with interactions up 210% year-over-year. Customers using Rufus convert at rates exceeding 60% higher than non-users. Photo searches in Amazon Lens more than doubled since 2023, with Lens Live increasing engagement by 13%. Review highlights receive hundreds of millions of impressions weekly with customer engagement up 100% year over year. Products available through Buy for Me grew from 65,000 at launch to over half a million presently.

When: Amazon announced the comprehensive update on November 18, 2025, detailing AI feature deployment and adoption across the year. The platform has used AI for over 25 years, beginning with machine learning algorithms for book recommendations.

Where: The AI features operate within the Amazon Shopping app on iOS and Android, the Amazon mobile website, and voice interactions through Alexa and Alexa+. The tools serve customers shopping across Amazon's hundreds of millions of products, including more than 300 million items available with fast, free delivery for Prime members.

Why: Amazon deployed comprehensive AI shopping features to address online shopping challenges including product discovery across vast selection, evaluation of multiple options, and personalized recommendations. The company works backwards from customers to solve pain points by offering conversational, visual, and auditory tools that help customers shop in ways that feel natural. The iterative approach to building and launching experiences focuses on testing what resonates with customers while evolving quickly when alternative features better solve problems.