by Erik Ricard, VP eCommerce | AMP Agency
Most sessions this year came back to the same idea: AI is taking on more of the setup and production work in Amazon’s ad tools, and it is changing how shoppers find products. Here is what stood out to us and what we want to try.
Shopping Is Turning Into a Conversation
Alexa for Shopping is growing. Amazon says active users have doubled and interactions are up fivefold since launch.
The biggest change for advertisers is Branded Conversations. Sponsored Brands Collections ads become back-and-forth chats inside Alexa for Shopping. Amazon says they arrive in the US in January 2027. That date is Amazon’s and could move.
Conversational prompts are also showing up in display ads outside Amazon, through Responsive eCommerce Creative, and are now available in 18 locales.
For brands, this puts product content in a new spot. If a chat is pulling from your listing, the listing needs to be clear and accurate.
Changes on the Advertiser Side
Amazon Ads Agent pulls Sponsored Ads, Full Funnel Campaigns, and DVA (the new name for Amazon DSP that includes Display, Video, and Audio campaigns) into one place. Access is rolling out in stages, so not everyone can use it yet.
DVA+ lets Amazon’s AI optimize toward a goal you set. If you would rather keep your hands on the controls, Advanced Settings does that. Melissa Burdick, Cofounder and President of Pacvue, summed it up on DVA: “Pick your level of control.”
Review Requests are also new. They invite verified buyers to rate or review newer products.
One detail from Amazon’s builder demo stayed with us. Even there, a person approved the audience before the campaign was created. Jeffrey Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer at Skai, described the direction as a move “from AI assistance toward agentic execution.” The tools are doing more, but someone still has to sign off.
What We Plan to Test
Branded Conversations interests us most. As access to these tools opens, we’ll be testing:
- Ads Agent
- DVA with Advanced Settings
- Review Requests on newer products
- And the Full Funnel Campaigns option across channels
Most of this is still in beta, so we will report back on what we find.
What We’re Already Doing with Creative
We have started using Amazon’s AI creative tools to turn static assets and listing content into TV-quality video. We began with food and beverage and pet brands. The tool generates the video, and our designers review each one to ensure it fits the brand’s voice.
Amazon has shared results from its own early beta tests: up to 71% more product coverage and up to 15% sales growth. Those are Amazon’s numbers, not ours, and we have not verified them. More to come.
A Concern About Trust
An Ipsos survey, cited by EMARKETER, found that 55% of US adults would trust AI recommendations less if they knew advertisers influenced the answers. Only 14% would trust them more.
That shapes how we plan to approach conversational ads. We would rather put accurate, useful product information in front of shoppers than push hard. Today, brand trust is paramount as shoppers consider every purchase they make.
Talk to Us
If you are deciding what to test first, or want to get your product content ready for conversational ads, your AMP account team is glad to talk it through.
Amazon sets timing and availability, and may change.
Sources
- Amazon unBoxed 2026 sessions
- EMARKETER (October 5, 2026), citing Ipsos
- SKAI
- PacVue
