Amazon sells AI tools to retailers
Amazon is selling its AI-powered shopping tools to other retailers, as the e-commerce giant looks to become a bigger player in the fast-growing market for AI-powered shopping tools.
The company’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, announced a new offering called Agentic Shopping Assistant on AWS, which allows retailers to build their own AI shopping assistants using the same foundation behind Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping experience.
This move takes a page out of the company’s cloud computing unit’s playbook, as they built AWS after developing cloud computing infrastructure for its own e-commerce operations.
AWS has since expanded that strategy into areas including supply chain services, cashier-less checkout technology, and advertising.
Earlier this month, Amazon replaced its Rufus shopping chatbot with an assistant called Alexa for Shopping, which combines Rufus with the company’s newer Alexa+ technology.
Amazon has increasingly pushed AI deeper into its shopping experience as tech companies race to turn chatbots into tools that can recommend products, compare items, and complete purchases.
Expanding AI Shopping Tools
Amazon introduced Rufus in 2024 as an AI shopping assistant designed to answer product questions and recommend items.
Over time, the company added more automated shopping features, including price tracking and purchasing tools.
Amazon previously disclosed that Rufus was used by more than 300 million customers last year and helped drive nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales.
Now, they are positioning that technology as a service for the broader retail industry.
Tapestry-owned luxury womenswear brand Kate Spade is already using the technology to power a new AI gifting assistant, according to Amazon, which is also helping other DTC founders with their next chapters.
Benefits for Retailers
David Dorf, global head of retail solutions at AWS, said retailers can combine the tools with their own business rules and brand voice to create customized shopping assistants.
“With every meeting with customers we had, they would say, ‘We want Rufus,'” Dorf said.
Dorf said Amazon believes retailers should build their own branded shopping assistants on their websites and apps, rather than rely solely on general-purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini to guide shoppers toward products, similar to how some in house brand sales are led by private brands.
Petra Schindler-Carter, general manager of retail and consumer packaged goods at AWS, said many retailers are increasingly worried about losing control over the customer relationship as consumers turn to AI agents and chatbots to discover products online.
They’re worried about getting disintermediated, she said.
Market Competition
The AI shopping market has become heavily contested, with OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity all introducing AI shopping tools that allow consumers to research products and, in some cases, make purchases through chat interfaces.
Some of those efforts have underperformed, in part due to lagging adoption among both retailers and consumers, including some popular streetwear brands.
Amazon is pitching its product as a faster alternative to building an AI shopping assistant from scratch.
In its announcement, the company said retailers receive architecture guidance, starter code, and support from AWS experts, allowing them to launch AI shopping experiences in weeks rather than the years it would take starting from scratch.
Artificial intelligence has become a key component of the e-commerce experience, with many retailers investing in AI-powered shopping tools.
Sky Canaves, principal retail and e-commerce analyst, said the move fits into Amazon’s broader strategy of supporting more commerce that happens outside its own marketplace while still finding ways to profit from it.
Amazon wants to have a finger in the pie of all of e-commerce, whether or not it takes place on Amazon, she said.
By improving e-commerce experiences everywhere, that ultimately benefits Amazon because it increases shopping activity.
Walmart said in February that customers who use its AI agent Sparky spend 35% more per order than those who don’t.
AWS executives said speed and responsiveness have become some of the biggest priorities as retailers test AI shopping tools.
Schindler-Carter said consumers have little patience for slow AI experiences, particularly in shopping.
Indeed, OpenAI quietly scrapped its Shopping Research tool, originally launched in November, because the product was too slow, a company executive told journalists on the scene in an interview earlier this year.
This can be a wonderful experience, but if you have to wait a long time, it’s not going to go anywhere, she said.
Dorf said AWS paused an early rollout of the product after testing showed the experience was not responding quickly enough.
We had to delay our production run to make sure that the customer experience was the way the customer wanted it, Dorf said.
