Amazon retired the "Amazon DSP" name at its unBoxed 2026 conference but kept the buying engine, moving the controls traders use behind an advanced-settings toggle, while the most automated product in its new lineup is the one already live for US advertisers, according to an analysis published on October 1, 2026 by the trade newsletter ADOTAT. The piece, credited to The Adotat Staff and Pesach Lattin, argues that Amazon's AI agent now chooses channels, audiences and bids in its default path and then grades the results with Amazon's own data. Amazon has said the programmatic capabilities of its DSP remain available.

In Short

Amazon renamed and repackaged the tool advertisers used to buy video, display and audio ads, putting a chat-based AI agent in front of it. A newsletter called ADOTAT argues that the simplest, most automated option, where Amazon picks where ads run and who sees them, is the one switched on first, while the version with manual controls was still in a closed test. Amazon says every old control still exists, so the dispute is less about what was removed and more about which path advertisers are steered toward by default.

What the column says, and where it stops

The article, titled Amazon Promised Full Control. Its Agent Won't Let You Pick An Audience, sits in ADOTAT's Retail Media section. Its standfirst reads: "Amazon retired the DSP name, not the DSP. It folded the engine into an AI agent that now picks your channels, your audiences and your bids, then grades the results itself, one month after the FTC accused it of rigging its own auction floor."

It opens with a personal note from Lattin explaining that the piece went out earlier than scheduled, and then turns to Amazon. Only the first part is free to read. The free preview ends with the line "This is where the free preview ends. Part Two is about measurement, the FTC, and the agencies who say they are seeing spend with no sales behind it." A subscription prompt follows. Nothing in Part Two is covered here.

That boundary matters for the headline. The free text does not contain a sentence stating that Full-Funnel Campaigns prevent an advertiser from selecting an audience. It describes Full-Funnel as the product in which "Amazon allocates the budget across formats," and describes the default DVA+ path as one in which "Amazon handles targeting, inventory, formats and bids." It also lists audience targeting among the controls kept in DVA+ advanced settings. The headline's claim is therefore an argument about defaults and about one product, built from what the preview sets out, rather than a documented statement from Amazon that audience selection has been withdrawn.

Most of the column's factual material is drawn from other trade outlets, chiefly MediaPost, Digiday and AdExchanger, and from Amazon's own product pages. ADOTAT adds interpretation, and in at least one place labels it as such.

Four layers, as ADOTAT describes them

The column's starting point is a distinction. "On Tuesday at unBoxed 2026, Amazon retired the name 'Amazon DSP.' It did not retire the DSP," it states. "Those are two very different sentences, and a lot of the hot takes this week have been written by people who confused them."

The announcement in question took place on September 29, 2026. Citing MediaPost's Laurie Sullivan, ADOTAT reports that the new umbrella, Amazon Ads Agent, "replaces the former Ads Console and Amazon DSP experience" with a platform built around a conversational chat interface. Under that umbrella Amazon sells three campaign types: Sponsored Ads, Display Video and Audio (DVA+), and Full-Funnel Campaigns.

Amazon's own DSP page, as quoted in the column, is direct about where the old tool went: "The programmatic capabilities you used in Amazon DSP are all available within DVA+ using advanced settings." According to ADOTAT, that page still describes those capabilities as a demand-side platform, and Amazon says existing campaigns, deals, audiences, reporting and pricing carry over.

ADOTAT then lays out the stack in four tiers.

Amazon Ads Agent is the interface. It covers sponsored ads, programmatic display, video, audio, streaming TV and the new full-funnel product in one place, with a chat assistant for planning, setup, analysis and optimisation.

DVA+ is the simplified programmatic workflow. An advertiser picks an objective such as sales, traffic or awareness, adds products and creative, and sets a budget. Amazon handles the rest. According to the column, DVA+ combines what used to be separate buys: Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV and programmatic campaigns.

DVA+ advanced settings is, in ADOTAT's phrase, "the old DSP wearing a new jacket." It holds audience targeting, deals, publisher inclusion and exclusion, frequency and bidding.

Full-Funnel Campaigns is the product ADOTAT singles out as "the genuinely new thing, and the one worth worrying about." A single campaign spans sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV. Amazon allocates the budget across formats toward outcomes such as new-to-brand and long-term sales. The AI, per MediaPost as quoted by ADOTAT, handles "the remainder of the process including planning, executing and continuously optimizing campaigns on behalf of advertisers." The minimum daily budget is $100.

That $100 figure is the one number in the free preview that defines who can buy the product. At that floor, a 30-day month costs at least $3,000, a PPC Land calculation rather than a figure in the column - well within reach of sellers who already run Sponsored Products and have never touched a DSP.

A past-tense claim and a product still in beta

Much of the column turns on timing. ADOTAT quotes Kelly MacLean, Amazon Ads' vice president of engineering, science and product, telling MediaPost: "With DVA+, we have brought the power of programmatic to advertisers of all sizes."

"Past tense. Have brought. Done," the column responds. As of the September 29 announcement, Amazon's materials said DVA+ was in an extended closed beta in the United States, with open beta expected in late October. According to ADOTAT, it was still in closed beta on October 1. That matches what PPC Land reported on September 29: a four-step DVA+ builder in US closed beta by invitation, invoice-only billing, open beta expected in late October 2026 and general availability targeted for 35 markets in the first quarter of 2027.

ADOTAT does not call the beta improper. "That is not a scandal. Betas are normal," it states. Its point is about sequence. "The thing that is actually live for U.S. advertisers, subject to eligibility, is Full-Funnel Campaigns: the most automated, least controllable product in the lineup. The thing that keeps the trader's hands on the wheel is the thing still in beta."

The column also flags a wording difference in the coverage of Full-Funnel's availability. MediaPost described the product as "currently available to all advertisers in the United States," while Amazon's framing elsewhere attaches eligibility requirements. "'Available to all' and 'subject to eligibility' are the kind of phrases that sound identical in a keynote and very different in an invoice dispute," ADOTAT wrote. The preview does not say what those eligibility requirements are.

MacLean's other public lines, as cited in the column, follow the same theme. She told Digiday the goal is "bringing the power of programmatic advertising to all advertisers," and told AdExchanger that advertisers had asked for the DSP's capabilities "in a much simpler way." ADOTAT accepts the premise. "Simplicity is a real product benefit and a real sales strategy at the same time, and nobody should pretend those are in tension. They aren't. They're the same thing."

Why retire a working acronym

Amazon's stated rationale, as ADOTAT summarises it, is to remove the split between the sponsored ads console and the programmatic tool so advertisers can use the same signals and measurement across both.

The column offers a commercial reading on top of that. "DSP," it argues, describes a specialist's tool and implies a trading desk and "someone who knows what a PMP is and why frequency caps matter." Every advertiser without such a person never touched the DSP. DVA+, by this account, removes the need for one. An advertiser who already runs Sponsored Products can be walked into streaming TV, open web video, display and audio "without anybody on the brand side ever learning what a bid shade is." Bid shading and frequency capping are exactly the kind of settings that, in the new structure, live behind the advanced toggle.

ADOTAT marks this section as interpretation. "To be fair and precise: that is my inference from the product design. Amazon has not announced it is retiring DSP functionality, and the advanced settings exist precisely so the experts don't revolt."

The argument that follows concerns defaults. Citing AdExchanger, the column says the traditional DSP-style experience now lives behind an advanced-settings toggle while AI-assisted DVA+ becomes the default setup. "Defaults are destiny," ADOTAT states. "The toggle is for the people Amazon already has. The default is for the people it wants."

The assistant that takes actions

The last section of the free preview deals with the chat assistant introduced at unBoxed in 2025. According to MediaPost, as quoted by ADOTAT, it has "received a makeover." A year ago it defined audiences and sped up insights. Now it finds answers, supports decisions and takes actions.

Advertisers can describe an audience in plain language and receive targeting recommendations across products, categories, keywords and Amazon audiences, "ready to apply to campaigns." They can request budget recommendations, compare incremental reach across channels, diagnose trends and benchmark results against peers.

That last capability draws the column's sharpest observation. "Amazon will tell you how you're doing compared with other advertisers, using Amazon's data, about campaigns Amazon optimized, on inventory Amazon sold. There's no villain in that sentence. There's also no outside party."

Amazon pitches the assistant as replacing "hours of manual report building with fast, structured answers." ADOTAT grants that this is useful, then adds a caveat: "It is also true that the hours of manual report building were where a skeptical analyst used to catch things. Speed is a feature. So is friction, sometimes."

The FTC case in the standfirst

The standfirst ties the launch to a legal dispute, describing unBoxed as coming "one month after the FTC accused it of rigging its own auction floor." That is ADOTAT's characterisation. On August 31, 2026, the FTC and 22 states sued Amazon over about $20 billion in alleged hidden ad surcharges in the Western District of Washington, alleging an undisclosed "soft reserve" applied after the auction had produced a winner and runner-up. The Amazon ad surcharge at issue, according to the complaint, is the gap between the runner-up price Amazon described to advertisers and the price it charged.

The complaint's public figures concern sponsored ads, not programmatic buying. According to the complaint, the share of clicks charged at the advertiser's own bid rose from about 4% in late 2020 to 79.1% in 2024. Amazon rejects the case. It has said that "In no scenario does an advertiser pay more than their bid," that average cost per click for Sponsored Products search ads was flat in real terms from 2019 through 2024, and that it looks forward to making its case in court. No court has ruled.

The free preview does not explain how the lawsuit relates to DVA+ or Full-Funnel pricing. That discussion is in Part Two, along with the agency accounts of spend without sales, and neither can be assessed from the material available.

How Amazon got here

The consolidation ADOTAT describes did not begin in September. On November 11, 2025, at unBoxed 2025, Amazon introduced Ads Agent as an AI system that automates campaign management through natural language commands, with campaigns launching only after advertisers approve its recommendations. At the same event Amazon began a beta of a Campaign Manager that combines sponsored ads and Amazon DSP in one platform.

In February 2026, Amazon opened its advertising APIs to AI agents through an MCP server, letting outside assistants run campaign setup and reporting by conversation. In June, unified reporting left beta with a December 31, 2026 retirement date for the separate Sponsored Ads and Amazon DSP reports pages.

The audience question ADOTAT raises also has a precedent. In July 2026, when Amazon added 10 AI features across Brand+ and Performance+, its new Audience Signals worked as optimisation inputs rather than hard targeting limits, meaning the system could reach users outside the segments an advertiser uploaded, and new Brand+ streaming TV prospecting lines moved to automatic deal selection by default. Audience exclusions continued to work. The pattern of keeping a control available while making automation the starting point predates the DVA+ rename.

Why it matters for advertisers and agencies

ADOTAT's column does not reveal a removed feature. Its free section concedes the reverse: Amazon says the DSP's capabilities are intact, and the column's own author labels the commercial motive as inference. What it documents is a set of choices about order and default. The automated, budget-pooling product is live, priced from $100 a day, and measured on outcomes Amazon defines, such as new-to-brand and long-term sales. The tier that keeps audience lists, deals, publisher lists, frequency and bidding in human hands was in a US closed beta when the column ran.

For agencies and trading desks, the practical stakes sit in reporting. When an assistant both optimises a campaign and benchmarks it against peers with data from the same platform, verification depends on what an advertiser can export and check independently. Amazon is already under federal scrutiny over how its sponsored ads auction priced clicks, a case it disputes. Whether the same questions reach automated cross-format budgets is something the free part of ADOTAT's piece points to but does not answer.

Open beta for DVA+ was expected in late October 2026. That release will show how much of the advanced tier reaches advertisers outside Amazon's invitation list, and on what terms.

Timeline

Summary

Who: ADOTAT, the trade newsletter, in a piece credited to The Adotat Staff and Pesach Lattin, writing about Amazon Ads and its vice president of engineering, science and product, Kelly MacLean, whose comments to MediaPost, Digiday and AdExchanger the column quotes.

What: An analysis arguing that Amazon retired the Amazon DSP name but not the DSP, moved its manual controls behind a DVA+ advanced-settings toggle, made AI-managed buying the default, and launched Full-Funnel Campaigns, a $100-a-day minimum product in which Amazon allocates budget across formats, while the controllable DVA+ tier remained in US closed beta. Amazon says DSP capabilities remain available in DVA+ advanced settings.

When: ADOTAT published the piece on October 1, 2026, two days after Amazon's unBoxed 2026 announcements on September 29 and one month after the FTC and 22 states sued Amazon on August 31, 2026.

Where: The products are Amazon Ads offerings for the United States, with DVA+ general availability targeted for 35 markets in the first quarter of 2027. The column appeared on ADOTAT's website, with its second half behind a subscription prompt.

Why: ADOTAT argues that defaults decide how most advertisers buy, that Amazon's assistant grading campaigns against peers with Amazon's own data leaves no outside party in the loop, and that these questions carry more weight while Amazon contests a federal case over how it priced sponsored ads clicks.