Amazon expands AI‑driven shopping assistance

Amazon has been integrating artificial intelligence into its retail platform for several years, and the latest addition is a feature called “Help me decide.” The tool watches a shopper’s activity—searches, product views and past purchases—to generate tailored product suggestions and a brief rationale for each recommendation. For example, a shopper looking at camping gear might receive a suggestion for an all‑season four‑person tent, with an explanation that it matches the other items in the shopper’s basket.

“Help me decide” appears after a user has examined a series of comparable listings, and it also shows up under the “Keep shopping for” banner at the top of the homepage. The button offers options to stay within the current price range or to explore cheaper or more expensive alternatives.

Technology behind the feature

The feature leverages Amazon’s own large language models, running on the AWS generative AI service Bedrock. It also incorporates the search service OpenSearch and the recommendation engine SageMaker to deliver personalized suggestions. According to Amazon, the integration of these services enables the tool to quickly analyze a shopper’s behavior and surface relevant products with concise explanations.

Availability and rollout

“Help me decide” is being rolled out to consumers in the United States and can be accessed via the Amazon Shopping app on iOS and Android, as well as on the Amazon website. The company indicated that the feature is part of a broader effort to use AI to make shopping faster, more confident and more personalized.

Building on prior AI initiatives

Amazon’s push into AI‑enhanced shopping builds on several earlier tools. Last year the company launched Rufus, an AI assistant designed to answer product‑related questions. In October 2024, Amazon added AI‑powered shopping guides across more than 100 categories, and earlier this year it began providing audio summaries of product details and reviews. The company also introduced Lens Live, which lets users point a phone camera at an object in the real world and receive Amazon product suggestions.

These initiatives illustrate Amazon’s strategy of layering AI capabilities throughout the customer journey, from discovery to final purchase. By combining conversational assistants, visual search, audio summarization and now personalized recommendation explanations, Amazon aims to keep shoppers engaged on its platform and drive additional sales.

Industry context

Amazon is not alone in exploring AI for e‑commerce. Competitors such as Google, OpenAI and Perplexity have also been developing AI‑driven shopping tools aimed at boosting conversions and improving the overall shopping experience. Amazon’s extensive cloud infrastructure and its suite of AI services give it a distinctive advantage in deploying these capabilities at scale.

Overall, “Help me decide” represents another step in Amazon’s ongoing effort to embed AI throughout its retail ecosystem, offering shoppers more confidence and convenience when making purchasing decisions.

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