Amazon Debuts AI-Powered Review Highlights

Amazon says it wants to give customers the power to review its reviews.

To that end, the retail giant announced Monday (Aug. 14) the launch of an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered feature that highlights what other customers have already written about products.

Writing on the company blog, Vaughn Schermerhorn — director of Amazon’s community shopping effort — said the feature provides a short paragraph on the product detail page that showcases the product features and customer sentiment frequently mentioned throughout reviews to help customers determine if a product is right for them.

“Now available to a subset of mobile shoppers in the U.S. across a broad selection of products, the AI-generated review highlights also feature key product insights and allow customers to more easily surface reviews that mention certain product attributes,” Schermerhorn wrote.

For example, a customer who wanted to know if a product was easy to use can find reviews mentioning “ease of use” by tapping on that product attribute in the review highlights.

Depending on customer feedback, Amazon may expand the review highlights features to additional customers and categories in the months ahead, Schermerhorn added.

Amazon has debuted a number of AI-powered solutions in recent months. For example, May brought news that the company was using the technology to spot damaged products before they ship.

The AI-powered tool is trained with pictures of undamaged items so that it can identify damaged ones. If the AI spots a broken item, that item is diverted to a worker who will double-check it. Locations without this technology use warehouse workers who check for damage as well as picking and packing orders.

Also in May, CNBC reported that Amazon had begun using AI to help better determine where to place inventory for faster shipping and delivery. The company’s “regionalization” project uses AI to study data and patterns in order to figure out what products will be in demand and where.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last week about the potential for AI to transform businesses.

According to PYMNTS data, roughly 40% of executives believe there is an urgent need to adopt generative AI, a market which is expected to balloon to $1.3 trillion by 2032, compared to $40 billion last year.

“As with any transformative integration, there must be an understanding of the resources needed to capture AI’s benefits at scale, and the feasibility of integrating them beyond simply chasing a trend,” PYMNTS wrote, noting that 62% of executives don’t think their companies have the AI skills necessary for a successful deployment.