Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled a new AI-powered retail solution designed to help retailers create their own branded conversational shopping experiences, bringing technology and operational learnings from Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping to businesses outside the Amazon ecosystem.
The new offering, called Agentic Shopping Assistant (ASA) on AWS, has been developed in collaboration with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center and aims to help retailers accelerate the deployment of AI-driven shopping assistants without building the technology from scratch.
The launch comes as AI increasingly reshapes how consumers discover and purchase products online, with conversational commerce emerging as one of the fastest-growing areas of digital retail.
Built on Amazon’s AI shopping expertise
According to AWS, the solution draws heavily from Amazon’s own experience developing AI shopping assistants. More than 300 million customers interacted with Amazon’s AI shopping capabilities last year, helping generate nearly $12 billion in incremental sales for the e-commerce giant.
The new ASA platform packages the architecture, starter code, deployment frameworks, and implementation guidance that Amazon developed through years of operating Alexa for Shopping and its newer AI-powered retail experiences.
Rather than providing a one-size-fits-all solution, AWS says retailers can combine the foundation with their own product catalogs, customer data, business rules, and brand voice to create customized shopping assistants tailored to their specific audiences.
Retailers face a new AI imperative.
AWS positions the launch as a strategic response to the growing influence of AI-driven discovery and decision-making.
As generative AI platforms increasingly become the starting point for product searches, retailers face mounting pressure to establish their own AI-powered shopping environments rather than relying solely on external search engines and recommendation platforms.
The company cites internal data suggesting that conversational shopping experiences can generate conversion rates 3.5 times higher than traditional keyword-based search, highlighting the commercial potential of AI-guided product discovery.
The solution is designed to help retailers maintain direct customer relationships while leveraging AI to deliver more personalized product recommendations, category guidance, and shopping assistance.
Kate Spade among early adopters
Fashion brand Kate Spade, part of the Tapestry group, has already deployed the technology through its AI-powered Gift Concierge experience.
Launched earlier this year, the assistant helps shoppers navigate gift purchases through natural conversations about occasions, recipients, and style preferences before recommending relevant products.
The solution was built using Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and Anthropic’s Haiku 4.5 model, with AWS stating that the project moved from development to production after approximately two and a half months of testing.
Yang Lu, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Tapestry, described the initiative as an example of how agentic commerce can improve customer experiences while maintaining brand-specific personalization.
Faster deployment for retailers
AWS says one of the biggest advantages of the new solution is speed.
What took Amazon years to refine internally can now be deployed by retailers in roughly 60 days, supported by AWS experts and implementation partners.
The solution is built on AWS services,s including Amazon Bedrock, AgentCore, and OpenSearch, all of which have been tested extensively within Amazon’s own retail operations.
Why it matters
The launch reflects a broader shift occurring across global retail as AI moves beyond recommendation engines into fully conversational and agentic commerce experiences.
Rather than simply helping consumers search for products, next-generation AI assistants are increasingly expected to understand intent, curate options, answer questions, and guide purchasing decisions in real time.
For retailers, the challenge is no longer whether to adopt AI-powered shopping experiences, but how quickly they can build capabilities that allow them to retain ownership of customer interactions in an increasingly AI-mediated retail landscape.
As conversational commerce becomes more mainstream, AWS is betting that retailers will prefer to operate their own branded AI assistants rather than depend entirely on third-party AI discovery platforms.
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