Amazon’s shopping agent now takes orders by text message and the thread where those orders get placed will carry ads. Sponsored Products are set to appear inside those conversations, free to advertisers for the time being. Purchases the agent completes on its own will stay ad-free.
The texting option went live today for a small, invite-only group of U.S. customers. Amazon plans to open it to millions more over the coming weeks and anyone keen to jump the queue can sign up for the company’s text updates and wait for an invite.
Once in, customers link a phone number, accept the terms and get a new contact called “Alexa Shopping.” From there they message it the way they’d message a friend. Reorder the laundry detergent from last month. Build a grocery shop from a photo of a recipe. Find a birthday present that arrives by Saturday. Alexa for Shopping searches, compares options and texts back with suggestions, then adds the chosen items to the cart and checks out when told to. Customers who’d rather not be asked can switch on auto-buy and let the agent pull the trigger when a price hits their target.
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