Amazon is expanding its generative AI tools for product listings, announcing that sellers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. can now enhance their listings with features that generate product descriptions, titles, and other essential details. Additionally, sellers are empowered to automatically "enrich" their existing listings by adding any missing information.
This launch comes nine months after Amazon first revealed its plans to implement generative AI technology for sellers. Thus far, the tech has primarily been available in the U.S., but earlier this month, Amazon discreetly introduced these tools in the U.K. as confirmed by a recent forum post. In its latest blog update, the company mentioned that this feature was rolled out in the U.K. and select EU markets "a few weeks ago," with over 30,000 sellers actively leveraging these AI-driven tools.
Amazon positions these innovative tools as a means for sellers to expedite their product listings. Sellers can access the List Your Products page, where they simply enter relevant keywords to describe their products and click the Create button to generate a new listing. Alternatively, they can upload a product photo through the Product Image tab to craft a listing.
Once the seller engages with the AI, Amazon generates a product title, bullet points, and a description, all of which can be edited for accuracy. However, due to the tendency of large language models (LLMs) to produce inaccurate information, Amazon advises sellers to thoroughly review the generated content before posting. “Our generative AI tools are continuously learning and evolving,” the company stated on its U.K. forum two weeks ago. “We're focused on developing robust new capabilities to enhance listing effectiveness and simplify the product listing process.”
Earlier this year, Amazon also introduced a tool that allows sellers to create product listings by entering a URL from their existing websites. It is still unclear if or when this feature will be made available to European or other markets outside the U.S.
The Regulatory Considerations
While Amazon is adept at integrating AI and machine learning within its expansive e-commerce platform, the introduction of AI tools in Europe raises regulatory considerations. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) addresses data privacy, while the Digital Services Act (DSA) focuses on algorithmic risks. Amazon's online platform is classified as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP), mandating transparency in AI application.
For context, Meta was recently compelled to suspend efforts to train its AI using European users’ public posts. Amazon has faced scrutiny from EU regulators in the past regarding alleged misuse of merchant data, including claims that it exploited non-public data from third-party sellers to bolster its own retail operations. Additionally, this month, U.K. retailers filed a £1.1 billion lawsuit against Amazon for similar practices.
Despite the distinct nature of Amazon’s generative AI initiative, its LLMs require a data training foundation, although specifics remain ambiguous. In its initial announcement last September, Amazon cited a quote from Robert Tekiela, VP of Selection and Catalog Systems, who highlighted the use of "diverse sources of information."
“Our new generative AI models can infer, enhance, and enrich product knowledge at an unparalleled scale, improving quality, performance, and efficiency. They learn to infer product details through various informational sources and logical reasoning. For instance, they can determine a table’s shape based on its diameter or infer a shirt's collar style from its image,” Tekiela explained.
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