Amazon’s Lens Live: AI-Powered Real-World Shopping Tool
▼ Summary
– Amazon launched Lens Live, an AI-powered upgrade to its visual search tool that enables real-time product discovery through a phone’s camera.
– Lens Live integrates with Amazon’s AI shopping assistant Rufus to provide product insights and AI-generated summaries during searches.
– The feature allows users to tap on items in their camera view to focus on products and add matches to their cart or wish list.
– Lens Live is powered by Amazon SageMaker and AWS-managed Amazon OpenSearch for scalable machine learning deployment.
– The tool initially launches on iOS for tens of millions of U.S. shoppers, with no announced plans for global expansion yet.
Amazon continues to push the boundaries of retail innovation with the introduction of Lens Live, an advanced visual search tool that transforms real-world shopping into an interactive digital experience. This new feature enhances the existing Amazon Lens by adding a real-time overlay, allowing users to instantly identify and explore products simply by pointing their phone’s camera at objects in their surroundings.
Unlike traditional visual search tools that rely on static images, Lens Live offers a dynamic, on-the-fly product discovery method. As users scan items, a swipeable carousel appears at the bottom of the screen, displaying matching or similar products available on Amazon. This seamless integration bridges the gap between physical and digital shopping, making it easier than ever to compare prices and styles while browsing in stores.
The tool is designed to support comparison shopping, a common consumer behavior, by enabling shoppers to quickly check if Amazon offers a better deal on items they encounter in brick-and-mortar locations. By tapping on any object within the camera view, users can prompt the system to focus on that specific product, with options to add it directly to their cart or save it to a wish list for later.
Behind the scenes, Lens Live is powered by Amazon SageMaker, which facilitates the deployment of machine learning models at scale. The system runs on AWS-managed Amazon OpenSearch, ensuring fast and accurate visual recognition capabilities. This technical foundation allows the feature to deliver responsive and relevant results in real time.
Adding another layer of intelligence, the experience integrates with Rufus, Amazon’s AI shopping assistant. Shoppers can access AI-generated product summaries and conversational prompts to learn more about items before making a purchase. This combination of visual search and contextual assistance aims to streamline decision-making and enhance user confidence.
Lens Live is initially rolling out to iOS users of the Amazon Shopping app in the United States, reaching tens of millions of shoppers in its first phase. There has been no official announcement regarding expansion to other platforms or international markets at this time.
(Source: TechCrunch)
