Amazon introduces a generative AI tool to respond to customer inquiries

As it continues to experiment with generative AI, Amazon is launching an artificial intelligence tool that can respond to questions from customers regarding a product, a representative revealed.

Users of the Amazon mobile app are now prompted to inquire about a certain item by a new feature. After that, it responds in a matter of seconds, mostly by summarizing data gathered from product reviews and the listing itself.

“We’re constantly inventing to help make customers’ lives better and easier, and are currently testing a new feature powered by generative AI to improve shopping on Amazon by helping customers get answers to commonly asked product questions,” Maria Boschetti, an Amazon spokesperson, said in an email.

Customers might be discouraged from reading through listings or browsing through pages of reviews in order to obtain product details thanks to this feature.

Though it can’t carry on a discussion like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Amazon’s new feature can react to imaginative prompts. A haiku about a women’s vest could be written on the listing. Additionally, it might describe the object in a Star Wars-inspired manner akin to Yoda. The tool isn’t meant to stray from the topic at hand; if it can’t respond to queries like “Who is Jeff Bezos?”, it will provide an error message.

The e-commerce research company Marketplace Pulse was the first to notice the tool.

In recent months, Amazon has added a number of AI capabilities on its website. The company began testing AI-generated product review summaries in June of last year. It has also introduced AI services for third-party sellers that assist them in creating listings and producing ad images. It has also released “Q,” an AI chatbot that helps businesses with routine tasks, and Bedrock, a generative AI tool available to Amazon Web Services users.

CEO Andy Jassy of Amazon stated on the company’s most recent earnings call that generative AI is being used to estimate inventory and find the most efficient last-mile routes for drivers.

“Generative AI is going to change every customer experience, and it’s going to make it much more accessible for everyday developers, and even business users, to use,” Jassy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer last month. “So I think there’s going to be a lot of societal good.”

In recent months, Amazon has added a number of AI capabilities on its website. The company began testing AI-generated product review summaries in June of last year. It has also introduced AI services for third-party sellers that assist them in creating listings and producing ad images. It has also released “Q,” an AI chatbot that helps businesses with routine tasks, and Bedrock, a generative AI tool available to Amazon Web Services users.

CEO Andy Jassy of Amazon stated on the company’s most recent earnings call that generative AI is being used to estimate inventory and find the most efficient last-mile routes for drivers.

“Generative AI is going to change every customer experience, and it’s going to make it much more accessible for everyday developers, and even business users, to use,” Jassy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer last month. “So I think there’s going to be a lot of societal good.”