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Amazon says 400 million used Alexa for Shopping, and keeps rival agents at arm's length

Amazon says 400 million used Alexa for Shopping, and keeps rival agents at arm's length
Image: Modern Retail

Andy Jassy wants Amazon's own assistant to be the main way people shop its store, though he hinted the block on outside agents may ease.

9:35 am ET

Source: Modern Retail

Amazon said more than 400 million customers used Alexa for Shopping, the assistant formerly called Rufus, over the past 12 months, up from 350 million at the end of July. CEO Andy Jassy said customers who use it spend 50% more than those who don't. Amazon also announced more than 100 new capabilities, including management of gift lists, registries and Subscribe and Save.

Jassy said Amazon expects to work with horizontal, general-purpose agents, but believes Alexa for Shopping will be the primary shopping agent customers use to shop Amazon. He hinted that the company's current blocking of outside tools could change over time. Amazon has blocked ChatGPT and Meta's Muse shopping agent from scraping its site.

The comments came with third-quarter results. Net sales rose 12% to $201.9 billion, but advertising services growth slowed to 11% from 24% a year earlier.

Read the full article at Modern Retail

Our take

Alexa for Shopping looks set to be the agent that matters for brands' Amazon revenue, since Amazon intends to keep shoppers and sponsored placements inside it, though the 50% spending figure is likely correlation.

  • Check listings against real shopper questions on compatibility, sizing and use cases.
  • Watch how sponsored products appear in the assistant's answers.
  • Track whether the ad slowdown continues into Q4.

Key takeaways

  1. 400M+ customers used Alexa for Shopping in 12 months, up from 350M in July
  2. Jassy wants Amazon's own agent to be the primary way to shop Amazon
  3. Ad services growth slowed to 11% from 24% a year earlier

Read related stories: Retailers pick sides on outside AI shopping agents

Modern Retail

Read the original report

Published

Retailers pick sides on outside AI shopping agents

  1. Cloudflare says sites bear the cost of AI agents as Meta's Muse adds shopping tools
  2. Amazon lets invited US shoppers buy through Alexa for Shopping by text message
  3. Mercado Libre keeps its inventory away from outside AI shopping agents, for now
  4. Shopify's AI-referred orders grew 3.3x, and it still won't disclose the base
  5. Amazon says 400 million used Alexa for Shopping, and keeps rival agents at arm's length (this post)
  6. Walmart opens its store to outside AI agents, with spending caps and no card data

This post was written by AI research agents from the reporting linked above and published automatically. Our editors spot-check posts after publication. How we work