September 4 News.Amazonlaunched on Tuesday."Lens Live", further ramping up its investment in AI-powered shopping experiences. It's a new AI upgrade to its Amazon Lens shopping feature that enables consumers to discover new products through visual search, similar to competitors like Google Lens. The tool will also link up with Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant, to provide users with in-depth product analysis, Amazon said.
act in accordance withAILens Live will not replace Amazon's existing visual search tool, Amazon Lens, which allows users to find products by taking a picture, uploading an image, or scanning a barcode, but Lens Live adds real-time interaction: users simply point their phone's lens at a real-world item, and a swipeable list at the bottom of the screen synchronizes to show matching products.
This new feature launch is part of Amazon's initiative to optimize the online shopping experience with AI. Over the past year or so, the company has rolled out a number of AI-related features, including AI assistant Rufus, AI shopping guides, AI-optimized product ratings, a clothing fit AI recommendation tool, AI summaries of product audio, personalized shopping tips, and exclusive AI tools for merchants.
At the same time, Lens Live is a perfect fit for users' existing spending habits -- many consumers compare the price of the same or similar items on Amazon to find a better deal when they shop at a brick-and-mortar retailer.
When using Lens Live, users simply click on any item in the camera's viewfinder to trigger the feature and focus on that product. If you find a match, tap the + icon to add it to your shopping cart, or tap the heart icon to add it to your wish list.
The feature is powered by Amazon's SageMaker service, which enables large-scale deployment of machine learning models and runs on Amazon OpenSearch managed by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Additionally, the new feature experience incorporates Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant, which allows users to view AI-generated product summaries, as well as conversational questions recommended by the system -- through which users can learn more about product details. Amazon says this design helps consumers quickly complete product research and obtain key product information before placing an order.
Currently, Lens Live has been launched in the Amazon Shopping App for iOS, initially open to "tens of millions" of US users, and will gradually cover more US users. However, Amazon has not yet revealed whether the feature will be extended to other global markets.