Amazon's shopping agent takes orders by text, with ads in the replies.
Amazon has started letting a small, invited group of US customers shop by text message with Alexa for Shopping, its AI shopping agent. Sponsored Products ads are set to appear among the options it texts back, Digiday reports.
Invited customers connect their phone number, agree to the terms and get an "Alexa Shopping" contact in their messages. From there they write to it in everyday language, asking it to repeat an earlier order, turn a recipe photo into a grocery basket, or find a present that will arrive in time. The agent searches, compares, fills the basket and pays on instruction, and an optional auto-buy mode lets it buy as soon as an item drops to the customer's chosen price. Requests carry across the text thread, the Amazon app, the website and Alexa devices. Amazon plans to open the feature to millions more people in the coming weeks, with a waitlist for others.
On advertising, Digiday says Sponsored Products sit in the discovery stage, when the agent sends back a set of options, and are free to advertisers for now. Orders the agent places by itself carry no ads. Amazon told Digiday that more than 400 million customers used Alexa for Shopping in the past 12 months and that use of its agentic features has grown more than eightfold since January. Alexa for Shopping replaced the Rufus assistant in May, and TechCrunch notes the launch follows Amazon's decision in September to block Meta's Muse agent from its site.
Amazon hasn't said when it will start charging for the text placements, how an impression will be defined in a chat, or what reporting brands will get. Independent ad tech consultant Jonathan D'Sousa-Rauto told Digiday that how an impression is defined, and how the ads are measured, will show whether they really drive efficiency for brands.
Our read: the feature is US-only for now. Gulf shoppers already buy through chat apps, so when agent-led shopping reaches Amazon's Saudi and UAE stores, brands should expect to compete for a handful of slots in a conversation rather than a page of results.
Why it matters
Ads are moving into the private chat where an AI agent shortlists products, leaving room for only a few brands per answer and raising new questions about what counts as an impression.
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