Amazon is riding on the current trend of text messaging, the most popular way to interact with AI agents. The company announced Friday that it is launching a feature that will allow customers to chat with an Alexa AI agent via text message to assist with shopping, similar to AI agents such as Muse and Instinct.
The move comes after Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from querying its site in September. The company is rolling out the feature just before the holiday shopping season begins.
The e-commerce giant said some customers in the U.S. will receive a message asking them to enable shopping features. Users with access can use natural language queries to text Alexa to shop on Amazon, including finding products, adding them to carts, and making purchases.
This text agent builds on recent shopping-focused upgrades to Alexa, so you can manage your lists, monitor prices, find products across the web, compare products, and check order status. Users can also share photos of products or people wearing the clothes to search for similar products on Amazon.
The company says that over time, Alexa will learn your preferences and suggest items accordingly.
The company said users who were not invited to use the feature can sign up for a waiting list. This feature will be rolled out more broadly in the coming weeks.
As the market for consumer-centric AI agents grows, platforms like Amazon are building their own platforms to take advantage of this new avenue of user interaction. Delivery company DoorDash said last month that third-party agents had placed only a few hundred orders in total on its platform and that it planned to focus more on developing its own text-based agent, which began in September.
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