Amazon is building AI-powered “interactive experiences” for search

Amazon is pitching to find these changes on an absolutely massive scale. “This will be a once in a generation change for search, just as the Mosaic browser made the Internet easier to engage with three decades ago,” wrote Amazon. “If you missed the 90s—WWW, Mosaic, and the founding of Amazon and Google—you don’t want to miss this opportunity.” And we might be seeing a change sooner rather than later, as Amazon wants to “deliver this vision to its customers immediately.”

It’s understandable why Amazon is in the running here. Chatbots can be a useful starting point when you’re looking to buy something with specific parameters. And just last week, Google showed how its new AI-powered search can deliver generative experiences. Create shopping guides with a single search, Amazon certainly doesn’t want to lose any ground in shopping, so it’s not surprising that the company is looking to introduce its own chatbot very soon.

That said, it’s unclear when this new experience might actually be released or what it might look like. When we asked for comment, Amazon spokeswoman Kerry Bertolino shared only: “We are investing significantly in generative AI across all of our businesses.” And looking at the general state of AI chatbots right now, I don’t believe chatbots will be that good. (In our comparison from March, ChatGPT overall beat Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard.)

Still, it looks like interactive shopping is coming to Amazon in the not too distant future, so you can prepare for the search experience on Amazon to get even more cluttered. Hopefully Amazon makes this new experience optional, like Google has for its own generative AI search.