Amazon is giving its advertising business an AI overhaul, replacing its long-running Amazon Ad Console with a new agent-powered platform while giving brands a greater say in how their products are presented through Alexa.
The changes were unveiled at Amazon’s annual Unboxed conference in San Francisco, just two weeks after Amazon’s upfront in Sydney, as the technology and e-commerce giant continues to weave generative and agentic AI deeper into both its advertising tools and consumer shopping experiences.
The first major change is the evolution of Amazon Ads Agent. Launched last year, Ads Agent was initially introduced as a chat-driven tool designed to automate parts of the ad-buying process, including campaign targeting and bid optimisation.
Now, Amazon is taking that experience much further, by integrating AI agents across the entire advertising platform and the workflows advertisers use.
As part of the overhaul, the existing Amazon Ad Console – which launched in 2012 – is being replaced by Amazon Ads Agent.
The move effectively shifts Amazon’s advertising platform away from a traditional dashboard experience and towards one where advertisers can use AI agents to help manage and execute their campaigns.
But the ad tech overhaul isn’t the only big AI change for Amazon.
The company has also introduced a new ad format, Branded Conversations, designed to appear when consumers interact with prompts surfaced through Alexa for Shopping.
This, it said, allows brands to provide additional information that can influence the resulting conversation.
The move comes after Amazon’s changes to its AI assistant earlier this year, including the introduction of Alexa for Shopping and Alexa+.
Previously, Alexa for Shopping could draw information from an advertiser’s product catalogue and Amazon Store when generating responses for shoppers.
And now, advertisers can provide additional information to help shape how their products are discussed within the experience.
That could include explaining how a product differs from competitors, highlighting particular features or outlining how different products can be used together.
In other words, Amazon is giving brands a new way to have a voice. However, that does not mean advertisers get to dictate what the AI ultimately tells consumers.
The Branded Conversations experience is designed to turn an initial shopping prompt into a more interactive exchange, with shoppers able to explore products through follow-up prompts and questions.
For advertisers, this may change how brands think about visibility as consumers increasingly use conversational interfaces to discover and compare products. Rather than simply competing for a position on a search results page, brands are now being given tools to provide information that can feed into an AI-powered conversation around their products.
Both the new Amazon Ads Agent experience and Branded Conversations are set to launch in the US in January.
B&T has contacted Amazon to confirm when the changes are expected to roll out in Australia.
