Amazon has added a messaging channel to its AI shopping assistant, Alexa for Shopping. Customers can send shopping requests by text without opening the Amazon Shopping app. The assistant searches for matching products, texts back suggestions, adds items to the cart and completes purchases on the customer’s behalf.
Invitation-only launch in the US
A selected group of US customers receives an invitation by text message. Participants accept the terms and link their phone number; the contact then appears on the phone as “Alexa Shopping”. Amazon says the option will reach millions more US customers in the coming weeks. The announcement covers the United States only – no launch date has been given for Germany or other European markets.
Price tracking and automatic purchases
The assistant handles
- recurring grocery orders
- reorders of previous purchases with customer approval
- product searches based on photos of a recipe or an outfit.
It displays up to a full year of price history, sets up price alerts and can complete a purchase automatically once a target price is reached. Through Shop Direct, it also surfaces products from other online stores. A request started by text can be continued in the Shopping app, on Amazon.com and on Alexa-enabled devices.
Usage figures are company data
Amazon states that more than 400 million customers have used Alexa for Shopping over the past twelve months, and that use of its agentic features has grown more than eightfold since the start of the year. The company does not give an absolute user number for those features. Rajiv Mehta, Vice President of Conversational Shopping, said that “your personal shopping agent is just a text away”, pointing to the habit of noting purchases in messages and group chats.
