Amazon's AI Sidekick: A ChatGPT-Like Service Aims To Elevate Product Search Experience

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN wants to compete with major tech players by integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI), or a chatGPT-style product search, into its web store. 

What Happened: The Seattle-based company plans to follow in the footsteps of tech rivals Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL.

According to Bloomberg, Amazon has job listings for senior software engineers and AI specialists. The goal is to help implement “interactive conversational experience” and “reinvent” the user search experience. 

See Also: ChatGPT Is Helping Flood Amazon With AI-Authored E-Books — And Riling Up Traditional Publishers

Conversational product search could significantly change Amazon’s primary retail operations. The search bar at the top of the home page is the point of entry for millions of shopping customers.

According to a survey by Jungle Scout, over half of U.S. shoppers begin their product searches on Amazon.com — a higher share than on Google. 

Critics blast Amazon’s search experience, citing increased presence of ads and sponsored content. This put pressure on the e-commerce giant to improve its service, the report noted. 

During a recent earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy lauded generative AI as a transformative technology. It can leverage vast amounts of data to create text or images based on prompts, presenting a unique opportunity to enhance the customer experience in many ways. 

Why It’s Important: The news comes as lawmakers consider regulating the new technology.

On May 16, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman testified before Congress about the uptick in AI over the past year.

“I’m more optimistic, my worst fears is that we cause significant harm to the world,” Altman said. “It’s a big reason why, if this technology goes wrong — it can go quite wrong — and we want to be vocal about that and work with the government to prevent that from happening.”

Companies are hustling to keep up with the advancing tech. Google, for example, plans to add Bard AI and short video clips to its search results. The move was in response to threats against its Search dominance. It also signals the search giant’s departure from the traditional “10 blue links” format that has made it the dominant search engine for decades. 

The search dominance debacle intensified when Microsoft incorporated OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology into its search engine, Bing. The system can now engage in prolonged dialogues with its users.

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