Amazon is testing short-form AI-powered audio product summaries on select product pages, the company announced on Wednesday. The audio summaries are voiced by what Amazon calls “AI-powered shopping experts” that discuss key product features, customer reviews, and information from across the web.
The new AI product summaries can be accessed by tapping the “Hear the highlights” button in the Amazon Shopping app. Amazon will test the feature on products that typically require consideration before purchase, the company says.
The idea behind the feature is to help Amazon customers save time while shopping and get important information through a conversational, discussion-style format.
“The feature makes product research fun and convenient — it’s like having helpful friends discuss potential purchases to make your shopping easier, even if you’re multitasking or on the go,” the company wrote in their blog post.
The summaries are currently available on select products to some U.S. customers. Amazon plans to roll out the feature to more products and to additional U.S. customers in the coming months.
The company explains that the feature uses large language models (LLMs) to generate scripts by pulling from customer reviews and information from the web, and then transforms this content into short-form audio clips.
Amazon says the new feature joins its current suite of AI-powered shopping features, which includes Rufus, its generative AI shopping assistant, and Interests, an AI feature that monitors new products that match your interests.
Amazon isn’t the only tech giant that’s leveraging short-form AI-powered audio to help users get informed in a quick, efficient way. Last year, Google’s NotebookLM rolled out Audio Overviews, a feature that gives users the ability to generate a podcast with AI virtual hosts based on documents they have shared with the AI research assistant, such as course readings or legal briefs.
