Amazon Unveils Agentic AI Assistant for Sellers, Revolutionizing Marketplace Management

Amazon launches AI agent to help sellers complete tasks and manage their businesses | TechCrunch

Amazon announced on Wednesday that it's introducing an always-on AI agent that will help sellers on its platform run their businesses. The company is updating Seller Assistant, its AI tool for third-party sellers, to help handle tasks on the seller's behalf. "Our agentic AI capabilities are designed to work seamlessly throughout the entire selling experience, which means sellers can go from handling every task themselves to collaborating with an intelligent assistant that works proactively on their behalf around the clock, while always keeping sellers in control," Amazon wrote in a press release. "Seller Assistant will be able to handle everything from routine operations to complex business strategy, so sellers can focus on innovation and growth." Seller Assistant can now not only monitor account health and inventory, but also help develop strategies and take action when authorized, Amazon says. For example, when a seller is reviewing their inventory, Seller Assistant will flag slow-moving products before they incur long-term storage fees and recommend whether it would make sense to leave the item as it is, lower the price, or remove it altogether. Seller Assistant will also be able to analyze demand patterns and prepare shipment recommendations. Seller Assistant continuously monitors a seller's account and flag potential issues and actions, such as inventory listings that might violate new product safety regulations. Additionally, it can automatically ensure that all of a seller's products meet compliance requirements in every country they're selling in. Agent-driven commerce is an area of intense interest for tech companies, which imagine a future in which agents can initiate deals or make purchases on behalf of their clients. On Tuesday, Google released a new payments protocol for agentic transactions, although Amazon was not named as a partner. Amazon also announced that it's bringing agentic AI to advertising, allowing sellers to develop ads through conversational prompts. Today's announcement marks the latest AI tools that Amazon has rolled out for third-party sellers on its platform. Other tools include a video generator for ads and a generative AI tool that helps merchants improve their product listings.

Amazon introduces AI agent to help sellers with tedious tasks

The company is adding agentic capabilities to Seller Assistant, its AI tool for third-party sellers, meaning the software can take action on a merchant's behalf with their permission, Amazon said. The update was announced during Amazon's annual Accelerate conference for sellers in Seattle. Amazon said tools like Seller Assistant free merchants up to "spend more time focusing on product innovation and customer relationships," while its generative AI tool handles more tedious operational tasks. Amazon has released several AI tools for third-party sellers, which account for more than half of all goods sold on the site, such as a product listing generator and an image and video generator for ads. Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's vice president of worldwide selling partner services, told CNBC in an interview this week that 1.3 million third-party sellers have used its generative AI listing tools, which can produce about 70% of what makes up a product listing on its webstore. "It really gives the seller, in some sense, a team of experts," Mehta said. "An expert in listing and in pricing and promotions and supply chain, all the things that a small business normally has to either try and learn on their own, hire someone to be an expert, pay someone to be an expert, or sometimes just accept not being that good at, which is not ideal."

Amazon unveils agentic AI tools for crucial seller marketplace amid heightened scrutiny

Amazon this morning unveiled a new wave of agentic AI tools designed to act as proactive partners for the independent sellers who generate more than 60% of its online retail sales. The upgrades to Amazon's Seller Assistant and Creative Studio promise to automate everything from monitoring inventory to producing polished ad campaigns. Amazon says they're meant to further empower the businesses that operate on its 25-year-old third-party marketplace. Amazon's partnership with those sellers has turned into "probably the most compelling and substantial collaboration in the history of retail," CEO Andy Jassy told the crowd during a Tuesday appearance at the company's Accelerate seller conference in Seattle. Many sellers see a more complicated reality, where the benefits of access to Amazon's giant marketplace come with rising costs, restrictive policies, and a sense of unequal treatment, as reflected in independent third-party surveys from analysts and consulting firms. Meanwhile, an ongoing FTC antitrust case alleges that Amazon has illegally leveraged its power over third-party sellers through a variety of practices that the company strongly denies. Those issues form a complex yet largely unstated backdrop for Amazon's annual seller conference. Accelerate is taking place this week at the Seattle Convention Center, a few blocks from Amazon's Seattle headquarters, drawing sellers from across the country and the world. Expanding on existing AI tools As with much of the tech industry right now, AI is front-and-center at this year's conference. It's part of Amazon's companywide effort to demonstrate leadership in a field where it has sometimes been seen as playing catch-up to OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and others. Amazon says its existing generative AI technologies have been used by 1.3 million sellers. They include tools that automatically generate product listings from a photo or short description, suggest attributes and keywords to include in listings, and draft ad copy, for example. The new agentic AI tools go beyond those capabilities to serve as broader assistants -- in some cases acting proactively, with the seller's permission, according to the company. The additions to the Creative Studio, for example, aim to give sellers a built-in creative partner that can research products and audiences, brainstorm concepts, draft storyboards, and generate full video and display ad campaigns from start to finish. "So rather than clicking a button, you're actually able to have a natural-language conversation with a creative partner that is working with you to help you achieve your goals," said Jay Richman, vice president of creative products and technology for Amazon Ads, in an interview. Features of the upgraded Seller Assistant include the ability to actively monitor inventory levels, flag potential compliance or account-health issues, and anticipate shifts in product demand -- even generating specific recommendations on pricing, promotions, or restocking. With a seller's approval, the tool can then take action by preparing shipments, scheduling replenishment, or adjusting listings directly through Amazon's systems. Going beyond generalized knowledge Amazon says it's powering the new tools with its Nova AI foundation model and Anthropic's Claude 4 in conjunction with its deep knowledge of shopping, successful seller approaches. That broad intelligence is then combined with real-time context about each seller's specific situation and history on the platform -- such as inventory levels, seasonal patterns, and promotions, plus the ability to act directly through Amazon's internal systems and APIs. "So it's not just some generalized knowledge or generalized capability from all the history. It is tailored to their specific situation," said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's vice president of selling partner services, in an interview about the new tools at the conference this week. For example, the tools could create tailored recommendations for a holiday-driven business on exactly how many units to send into Fulfillment by Amazon -- and then, if approved, schedule and facilitate the shipments, all the way down to creating the shipping labels. Amazon's access to confidential merchant data on its e-commerce platform has been a sticking point in other situations, giving rise to accusations that people inside the company have mined individual seller information to launch competing products. Amazon has repeatedly denied these allegations. With the new AI tools, Mehta said, the company has been careful not to train its models with seller-specific data, ensuring that no confidential information informs its recommendations to a competing seller. Instead, Amazon aggregates broad trends and insights, and combines them with the seller's own context, while keeping that seller's information siloed. "That's really important for privacy," Mehta added, noting that no one would want their personal data used to give a competitor an advantage. The goal, he said, is to build trust so that sellers are comfortable letting the AI act on their behalf with their permission. The broader financial stakes are huge for Amazon and sellers. * U.S.-based independent sellers averaged more than $290,000 in annual sales in 2024, with more than 55,000 of them topping $1 million in sales, according to the company. * Amazon's revenue from third-party seller services -- which includes commissions, fulfillment and shipping fees, and related services -- reached $156 billion in 2024, or nearly a quarter of its total revenue of $638 billion. All of which makes it all the more remarkable that this part of Amazon's business almost never happened. Addressing sellers Tuesday afternoon in an appearance with Mehta on stage, Jassy said the decision to allow independent sellers into Amazon's online store caused "quite an animated debate" inside the company when it was first considered 25 years ago. Amazon executives were unsure at the time that third-party merchants could live up to its brand and customer service standards. But ultimately, he said, after weeks of deliberation, they decided that more sellers would mean better selection and lower prices for customers. "What we're doing together is very unusual," Jassy said, predicting that the new wave of AI tools are going to make the collaboration even more successful. "I still think it's very early days."

Amazon Uses AI to Turn Missed Searches Into Seller Gold | PYMNTS.com

By turning what shoppers can't find into a to-do list for entrepreneurs, the eCommerce giant is recasting failure into an opportunity. Amazon is using its annual independent seller conference in Seattle to deepen its role as a partner to small businesses and brands. The company rolled out several artificial intelligence-driven tools designed to help sellers launch products faster, lower upfront risk and capture shopper demand more efficiently, according to a Thursday (Sept. 18) company blog post. The centerpiece is an upgraded Opportunity Explorer, which now parses billions of searches, clicks and purchases to translate marketplace signals into plain-English prompts for product development and pricing, the post said. Additionally, sellers can use two new capabilities, per the post. Unmet Demand Insights flags gaps where customers are searching but not finding what they want. Niche Product Overview highlights must-have features and pricing benchmarks in smaller but promising categories. The goal is to replace weeks of manual research with instant, data-backed guidance on what to build and how to price it. PYMNTS has tracked how platforms are increasingly using AI to close these gaps between intent and fulfillment, from payments to product recommendations. "We want to help reduce guesswork and risk for sellers while furthering the growth of amazing new products," Mary Beth Westmoreland, vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Experience at Amazon, said in the post. Amazon is also changing the mechanics of product launches, according to the post. A new regional inventory option allows sellers to place smaller stock in one geography, say, the Northeast, while still offering Prime-speed delivery there. If sales validate demand, inventory can expand nationwide. This trims working capital needs and provides a way to test products without overcommitting, aligning with broader merchant strategies to preserve liquidity while navigating shifting consumer demand. Early reviews, another hurdle for new products, are also being streamlined, per the post. Sellers can now enroll items in Amazon Vine as soon as inventory is inbound to Fulfillment by Amazon, rather than waiting for listings to go live. The company has expanded its pool of vetted Vine Voices and sharpened category matching. Reviews may now include photos and videos, which historically boost sales of new products by up to 30% within months. On the product detail page, shoppable A+ Content will embed carousels, deal callouts and add-to-cart buttons directly inside branded storytelling modules, the post said. This compresses the path from browsing to purchase, mirroring what PYMNTS has highlighted in the convergence of content and commerce. Finally, a new AI-powered Product Performance Spotlight will act as a coach in the background, flagging when inventory needs replenishment or ad campaigns require tuning based on early signals, according to the post. Amazon's new suite is pitched to sellers across the spectrum, from first-time entrepreneurs cautious about inventory to established brands seeking faster, sharper product-market fit. For Amazon, the incentive is a steady flow of new listings keeping shoppers engaged. For sellers, the through line is cost discipline. They can launch with fewer units, get reviews sooner, adapt quickly and scale only when the data supports it. "Together, these innovations shorten the path from concept to customer favorite," Westmoreland said in the post. "...[T]hese tools accelerate the entire product journey, helping sellers go from idea to profitability more efficiently." That acceleration is critical in today's eCommerce environment, where sellers face increasing pressure to balance speed and efficiency while managing risk in a competitive marketplace.

Amazon Expands Seller Assistant With Agentic AI to Become Always-On Partner | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The company said in a press release Wednesday (Sept. 17) the enhanced Seller Assistant now goes beyond Q&A guidance to monitor inventory, manage compliance and generate advertising campaigns, positioning the eCommerce giant as a more active partner to the millions of independent merchants on its marketplace. Mary Beth Westmoreland, vice president of worldwide selling partner experience, said the announcement represents "an important step forward that allows AI to not just respond, but to reason, plan, and help take action with a seller's permission." Amelia is a conversational assistant that could answer operational questions and provide quick guidance. The new iteration goes further, with AI built on Amazon Bedrock and models including Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude. It uses insights gathered from nearly 25 years of working with independent sellers to act as what Amazon describes as an always-on operational partner. Westmoreland said the capabilities are designed so "sellers can go from handling every task themselves to collaborating with an intelligent assistant that works proactively on their behalf around the clock, while always keeping sellers in control." Inventory has long been one of the biggest challenges for Amazon merchants. As PYMNTS noted in earlier reporting, sellers are under pressure to balance storage costs, delivery expectations and demand forecasting. The upgraded Seller Assistant now monitors inventory levels, flags slow-moving items before long-term fees apply and recommends when to mark down or remove products. For seasonal surges, the system reviews a seller's catalog, compares historical demand with current trends and produces a detailed inventory plan. Recommendations extend to allocation between Fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, giving sellers clearer tradeoffs between delivery speed and cost. Compliance is another a major friction point for smaller merchants. The upgraded assistant now scans in the background for potential account health issues, from new product safety regulations to customer-service metrics that could trigger penalties. If a product listing inadvertently implies that it functions as a pesticide, the assistant alerts the seller, explains the regulatory concern and provides resolution options. With approval, it can implement the fix before the violation disrupts sales. For new listings, the assistant's automated document analysis checks for missing certifications such as UL standards and guides sellers through what to add and why. Advertising was another early priority. Last year, Amazon was already investing in generative AI to help sellers sharpen product discovery and visibility. The new creative studio builds on that path, turning conversational prompts into Sponsored Ads enriched with Amazon's shopping-signal data. In one example, a smart bird-feeder brand used the tool to produce a Father's Day Sponsored Video campaign that lifted click-through rates by 338%, generated 89% new-to-brand offers and delivered a 121% return on ad spend. Beyond ads, the assistant can analyze sales patterns and customer behavior to recommend new product categories, refine marketing strategies and assemble seasonal playbooks. Amazon said it will also guide sellers through international expansion opportunities. Early users have compared Amelia to having a business consultant embedded in their workflow. Alfred Mai, founder of ASM Games, said the assistant now provides answers and actions immediately, eliminating the need to dig through dashboards. The upgraded Seller Assistant is available to U.S. sellers now, with rollout to other countries planned in the coming months. PYMNTS noted last year that Amazon typically scales new tools internationally once initial performance is validated. Amazon's expansion of Amelia underscores its strategy to become an operational partner for sellers rather than a passive platform. By embedding AI into inventory, compliance and advertising, Amazon not only reduces friction for merchants but also strengthens retention and loyalty. Other platforms such as Shopify, Walmart and eBay are rolling out their own AI-enabled tools for merchants, but Amazon's advantage lies in its combination of marketplace data, fulfillment infrastructure and integrated services. For sellers, the potential gains include fewer hours on administrative tasks, lower storage fees, earlier compliance interventions and smarter advertising campaigns. The risks are also evident. Sellers must trust the system's accuracy and maintain full control over actions. Transparency into why suggestions are made, and clear approval flows will be critical to adoption. Westmoreland said the goal is to let merchants focus on building products and customer relationships while Amazon's AI handles operational complexity. "Our agentic AI capabilities are designed to work seamlessly throughout the entire selling experience," she said, "so sellers can focus on innovation and growth."