For better or worse, AI is becoming less and less avoidable across the internet. Google’s search engine responds to queries with AI-generated summaries, AI-generated images and videos have flooded social media platforms, and online retail giants have wholeheartedly embraced AI in the hopes of creating a more personalized and “frictionless” user experience. Now, Amazon is offering its latest attempt in a growing roster of AI-powered features designed to help you buy products from the retailer: a new tool that uses generative AI to create images of products based on vague descriptions. Available now to U.S. customers through the Amazon Shopping app on iOS and Android, the feature is intended (like most other AI shopping features) to make it easier for shoppers to find products online—and thereby shorten the span of time between the impulse to buy something popping into their brains and the moment they finalize a purchase.
According to the company’s announcement, the new tool is useful when you don’t know or can’t remember the name of a particular product, but can roughly visualize it in your mind’s eye. If you’re looking, say, for a durable rug made of natural fibers but can’t remember the word “sisal,” you can enter the description into Amazon’s product search bar, and AI will generate images that roughly match what you’re looking for. The generated images aren’t of actual products sold by Amazon, but clicking one of them will lead you to similar products that are for sale.
“Now, as customers search for products using descriptive language—like color, texture, or pattern—AI-generated images instantly take shape in the suggestions below the search bar, shifting and refining with each word added. The feature works best where visual details matter most, and customers can experience it today when searching for items in apparel and home, with more categories available over time.”
Amazon also launched a new “shop by style” feature, which suggests outfits via AI-generated collages when shoppers search for a single article of clothing. Searching for a “women’s silk shirt,” for example, could yield a recommendation for whole outfits labeled “executive chic” and “urban luxe.”
The new AI tool is just one of many that Amazon has been steadily peppering into the various touchpoints of the online shopping process. You can ask questions about particular products to Rufus, the company’s AI chatbot. Through the Lens Live tool in the Amazon Shopping app, you can point your phone’s camera at a product you spot in the real world to instantly receive recommendations for similar products. And another “Help Me Decide” feature analyzes your shopping history to feed you recommendations of what to buy next.