Amazon is ramping up its e-commerce AI efforts, launching a third-party seller assistant called Amelia

Author: Li Dan

Source: Hard AI

In December last year, Amazon's cloud business AWS launched the generative artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Amazon Q. Now, Amazon is making a move in the e-commerce field by introducing the AI assistant Amelia to serve third-party sellers on its platform.

On Thursday, September 19th, Amazon announced the beta version launch of Amelia, initially targeting some third-party sellers in the United States. In the coming weeks, it will expand to more sellers in the U.S., launch in other countries later this year, and introduce versions in languages other than English. Amazon describes Amelia as an "integrated sales expert based on generative AI," providing access through the third-party sellers' internal dashboard Seller Central.

Amelia is built on Amazon's software tool Amazon Bedrock, which utilizes advanced foundational models from Amazon and other companies to set up generative AI apps. It aims to help sellers quickly address account-related issues, access sales and inventory data, and enable each seller to swiftly obtain their unique key performance indicators and related reports.

Amazon introduces three main functions of Amelia:

• Answering knowledge-based questions: Sellers can ask specific questions, and Amelia will gather relevant information from Seller Central and other highly accurate and reliable sources to provide a summarized answer, making it easy for sellers to quickly find the information they need. For example, if a seller asks what preparations are most needed for the holiday season, Amelia can quickly generate personalized information for the seller's situation, along with practical operational advice tailored to the seller.

• Status updates and metrics: Sellers can quickly retrieve their sales data and customer traffic information and understand key aspects of their business by asking questions like how their business is progressing. Amelia will provide an overview of recent sales, sales units, and website traffic, comparing these data with the previous year. Sellers can also delve deeper into the results by asking additional questions, such as "How are my cotton T-shirts selling?" Amelia will outline information on the product's sales, growth, customer traffic, and more.

• Taking action and problem-solving: Amelia will be able to diagnose issues and, in some cases, take action on behalf of sellers, providing direct solutions for complex problems and tasks. By simplifying sellers' operational needs and burdens, Amelia will reduce the time and effort required for sellers to manage their businesses. Sellers can seek help from Amelia to solve problems, such as asking Amelia about 300 items in transit that are not showing up in reports, and requesting an investigation. Amelia will respond by investigating the issue, finding the appropriate team, summarizing the team's details, and sending them to the seller, asking if they need assistance. If needed, Amelia can assist in investigating the problem or help the seller contact support staff Ensure that the issue is resolved as soon as possible.

Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President of Global Sales Partner Services at Amazon, stated that an increasing number of merchants are using Amazon's AI services. Out of the millions of third-party sellers on Amazon, over 400,000 sellers are now using Amazon's AI listing tools, compared to only 200,000 sellers in June.

Mehta mentioned that Amelia's training is based on publicly available data from the internet, as well as information extracted from Amazon seller resources, FAQs, and other publicly accessible websites. The model does not use seller-specific data for training, as seller-specific data is strictly protected.

Also on Thursday, Amazon launched an AI video generator called Video Generator, which is currently only available to advertisers. The tool has limited functionality and can convert a single product image into a video display of that product. Amazon stated that this tool can create "customized" AI videos showcasing product features without additional costs.

Jay Richman, Vice President of Amazon Advertising, mentioned that Video Generator is currently being tested with some U.S. advertisers, and adjustments will be made gradually before a wider release