Amazon is tearing down the walls. It is no longer leveraging separate assistants for separate platforms. Instead, it is bringing Alexa everywhere, and that’s manifesting in the form of Alexa for Shopping on Amazon.
I tried Amazon Alexa+, and I’ve never been this excited about a smart home assistant before
It’s what a smart home assistant should be like
The e-commerce giant announced earlier today that it is bringing Rufus and Alexa+ together to create ‘Alexa for Shopping‘ for the Amazon app and website.
The company describes it as the world’s “best, most personalized AI assistant for shopping.” It brings together Rufus’s product expertise and Amazon shopping history with Alexa+’s personalized knowledge and context.
“What you share with Alexa on your Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices informs your shopping experience on Amazon, and your conversations, browsing, and purchases on Amazon make Alexa more helpful across all your experiences, including on Amazon.com,” wrote the tech giant.
According to Amazon, Alexa for Shopping can help you find products, compare different categories and items, offer recommendations, track prices, buy items at a pre-determined target price, reorder essentials, manage your cart, and even “shop from other online stores across the web.”
The addition is a massive win, mainly for those already deep in the Amazon ecosystem, and that’s because the assistant knows how to carry over context from your impromptu smart home speaker conversations to your mobile shopping cart.
That’s the main selling point here. Continuity. Previously, if you talked to your Echo device about something, that context did not travel to Amazon. With Alexa for Shopping, it does.
Here are some examples of many that the tech giant shared:
Your daughter has a science fair at school coming up, and you brainstorm ideas with Alexa on your Echo. You land on a homemade volcano. The next day in the Amazon Shopping app, you ask Alexa for Shopping “please suggest supplies for my science fair project that we talked about.” Alexa for Shopping recommends supplies for the homemade volcano, you add them to your cart, and they’re on your doorstep that evening.
Your dishwasher stops working. You type into the search bar on your Amazon app: “An E07 error code is flashing on my dishwasher.” Since you previously researched the best detergent pods for your Bosch dishwasher with Alexa+ on your Echo Show, it has learned what type of dishwasher you own. Alexa for Shopping shares that error message for your dishwasher signals a drying problem and offers a set of troubleshooting tips to try before calling a technician. Resetting the dishwasher does the trick.
As part of the new integration, you’ll be able to ask questions right within the Amazon search bar. There’s also a separate Alexa for Shopping chat window.
Elsewhere, as part of the development, the e-commerce giant is bringing the complete Amazon app shopping experience to your Echo Show smart display. Users will be able to browse, search, and shop the full Amazon catalog right on their Echo Show with voice, touch, or both.
The new Alexa for Shopping experience will roll out to all U.S. customers over the coming week. Alexa for Shopping will be available to all signed-in users, regardless of the Prime status. Learn more about the development here.
