Amazon rolls out short-form AI-powered audio product summaries for select items | TechCrunch
May 21, 2025 - techcrunch.com
Amazon is testing AI-powered audio product summaries on select product pages, allowing users to access key product features and customer reviews through short-form audio clips. These summaries, voiced by "AI-powered shopping experts," aim to make product research more convenient and engaging by providing information in a conversational format. The feature is currently available to some U.S. customers and will expand to more products and users in the coming months. It utilizes large language models to generate scripts from customer reviews and web information, enhancing Amazon's suite of AI shopping tools, which includes the generative AI shopping assistant Rufus and the Interests feature.
This initiative is part of a broader trend among tech companies to leverage AI for efficient information delivery. For instance, Google introduced Audio Overviews through its NotebookLM, enabling users to create podcasts with AI virtual hosts based on shared documents. This reflects a growing focus on using AI to streamline the user experience by providing quick, accessible insights.
Key takeaways:
Amazon is testing AI-powered audio product summaries on select product pages to help customers save time and get important information in a conversational format.
The audio summaries are voiced by "AI-powered shopping experts" and can be accessed by tapping the "Hear the highlights" button in the Amazon Shopping app.
The feature uses large language models to generate scripts from customer reviews and web information, transforming them into short-form audio clips.
Amazon plans to expand the feature to more products and additional U.S. customers in the coming months.