There's something interesting happening with Amazon's product reviews — and yes, it's about AI
- E-commerce giant Amazon has started testing the use of AI to summarize product reviews.
- Amazon seems to be doing a limited rollout of the feature that is appearing only in some listings.
AI has truly taken over — e-commerce giant Amazon has even started using the technology to summarize product reviews on its website.
The AI-generated review scrapes information about what customers liked, or disliked about the product, and carries a note which reads the text is "AI-generated from the text of customer reviews."
For instance, a mobile listing for a "Magic Mixies" toy stated that while customers have given positive feedback praising the item's "fun factor" and "appearance," there are also negative reviews about the quality of the item.
This new feature was first flagged by Mark Wieczorek, the chief technology officer of Amazon marketing agency Fortress Brand, in a LinkedIn post over the weekened.
Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours, but a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Monday the company was testing the feature.
"We are significantly investing in generative AI across all of our businesses," an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC.
Wieczorek wrote in his LinkedIn post that AI-generated product review summaries could be useful in guiding customers toward newer reviews. "It's long been known that aged products — that have had the time to build up large numbers of reviews — have had an unfair advantage against newer (potentially superior) entrants," he said.
"This could be a step towards reducing review moats and guiding customers towards newer (potentially superior) products that don't have "review moats," he added.
Amazon's rollout of the AI feature comes amid hype in the technology following the viral success of the ChatGPT bot which spawned a race in the technology.
Big Tech firms from Google to Meta have all jumped into the AI trend, spurring fears that tech could eliminate jobs including those in the media, market research, and even the legal industry.