Amazon is apparently testing a new AI assistant on its mobile app that can respond to user inquiries about specific products.
This function appears to have been found first by e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse. According to the company, the AI is available on product sites under the “Looking for specific info?” area. The LLM (large language model) that powers the functionality generates responses to inquiries based on company listing facts and user feedback. For example, you can inquire whether a specific fitness jersey is appropriate for running or if it fits well on a tall person. Marketplace Pulse’s main objective is to save users the hassle of having to read individual evaluations by summarizing all of the information provided in a concise chunk of text.
The AI assistant’s capabilities are limited due to its early stage. You cannot instruct it to compare two goods or “find alternatives.” Although it cannot promote specific products, Amazon’s chatbot can give indirect recommendations. In another case, MarketPlace Pulse questioned the app assistant if e-bikes were suitable for romantic occasions. The AI replied “not really” and suggested purchasing a tandem bike instead.
Quirks and unexpected features
There are various idiosyncrasies that impact the chatbot. Unsurprisingly, it is “prone [to] hallucinating wrong information” about a product. According to MarketPlace Pulse, it flatly refused to “answer basic questions”. Furthermore, the assistant may answer queries that “Amazon didn’t build it for.”
It can generate Python code, write product-related jokes, and provide responses in languages other than English. CNBC had access to the test and was apparently able to describe goods “in the style of Yoda from Star Wars.” Despite these powers, you cannot have a regular conversation with the AI, as you can with ChatGPT.
It’s unclear how widespread the test is. We didn’t have access to our phones. So yet, Amazon has not made any public announcements, but we contacted the platform to learn more about the AI. We also questioned Marketplace Pulse if it knew whether the helper was available to everyone or just a select few. This story will be updated later.
Alexa upgrade
Amazon’s AI ambitions do not end there, according to Business Insider, who reports that the tech giant is now working on a revised and paid version of Alexa. The improvement is named Alexa Plus, and it is intended to provide a “more conversational and personalized” experience, similar to ChatGPT.
The company intends to debut Alexa Plus on June 30, according to the article. Unfortunately, development is not progressing smoothly. According to an insider, the redesign is “falling short of expectations”. The AI is supposedly hallucinating erroneous information while the team struggles to get the technology to work properly. The initiative may also be causing a lot of internal strife with some believing customers are not likely to want to pay for another Amazon service.
At first sight, it appears that Alexa Plus may miss the June 30 deadline.
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