Amazon says it is launching a feature that lets customers text its Alexa AI agent for help shopping. The rollout comes just before the holiday shopping season, after Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from querying its site in September.
Selected U.S. customers will receive a text asking them to enable the feature. Those with access can use natural-language queries to search for items, add them to a cart and purchase them; customers who are not invited can join a waitlist. Amazon says it plans to make the feature available more broadly in the coming weeks.
The text agent builds on recent shopping-focused Alexa upgrades, including managing lists, tracking prices, searching the web, comparing products and checking order status. Users can also share a picture of an item or someone wearing an outfit to find similar listings on Amazon. Amazon says Alexa will learn users’ preferences over time and suggest items accordingly.
The article compares texting Alexa with interacting with AI agents such as Muse and Instinct. In a separate example of the market’s development, DoorDash said third-party agents had placed only hundreds of orders in total on its platform and that it planned to focus further on its own text-based agent, launched in September.