Amazon is jumping on the currently most popular bandwagon for interacting with AI agents: texting. The company on Friday said it is launching a feature that lets customers chat with its Alexa AI agent over text messages to help them shop, much like you can with AI agents like Muse or Instinct.
The move comes after Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from querying its site in September. The company is rolling the features out just before the start of the holiday shopping season.
The e-commerce giant said select U.S. customers will get a text asking them to enable the shopping feature. Those with access can text Alexa to shop on Amazon using natural language queries, spanning everything from searching for items, adding them to cart, and purchasing.
The text agent builds on the recent shopping-focused upgrades to Alexa, and so can manage lists, keep tabs on prices, search for items across the web, compare products, and check the status of orders. Users can also share a picture of an item or someone wearing an outfit to search for similar listings on Amazon.
The company said over time, Alexa will learn users’ preferences and suggest items accordingly.
The company said users who don’t get invited to use this feature can sign up to a waitlist. The feature will be rolled out more broadly in the coming weeks.
As the market for consumer-focused AI agents balloons, platforms like Amazon are building their own to tap this new avenue of user interaction. Last month, delivery company DoorDash said that third-party agents had so far only placed hundreds of orders in total on its platform, and that it plans to concentrate on developing its own text-based agent, launched in September, further.
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Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web.
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