Better than Google, Amazon rushes to integrate AI: Customers can personalize their shopping experience, employees reduce manual work

After ChatGPT went viral globally, Amazon asked a series of employees to present ideas for applying new chatbot technology to improve products and workflow. The internal sharing, titled “Innovative AI-ChatGPT Impact and Opportunity Analysis,” listed 67 potential uses for ChatGPT and similar technology, according to BI.

The move shows that Amazon is rushing to race with AI – which this “tech master” of warehousing and shipping should have been the initiator. Before that, the corporation made a huge commercial splash on the internet by selling books online in 1990, revolutionizing reading habits with the Kindle, and using AWS to kickstart the computing industry.

“Amazon is really afraid of being late,” said one employee, who asked not to be named.

In fact, Amazon is not so disturbed and growing very quickly. In an email to Insider, a company representative said Amazon has been applying machine learning and artificial intelligence for more than 25 years.

“Amazon is leading the industry in technology. Our AWS computing business has many customers and partners. We are also investing in artificial intelligence in all areas,” said an Amazon representative.

A frank discussion took place, mainly around the shortcomings and potential Amazon can exploit and use.

“Amazon already offers products that use language modeling to create and analyze content, but none are really like ChatGPT,” an employee said.

According to BI, Amazon is aggressively looking to capitalize on the AI ​​chatbot boom, including accelerating productivity, starting new AI projects, and boosting cloud computing services. Some employees even suggested integrating ChatGPT into Amazon’s creative workflow.

In the document “Innovative AI-ChatGPT Impact and Opportunity Analysis”, sales team members said they can use the new technology to quickly find financial reports and competitors to find strategic goals. Chatbots can also help analyze customers’ feelings and needs for a product, thereby improving the quality of after-sales care for buyers. In addition, they also predict trends and content that can go viral.

For AWS, ChatGPT helps automatically calculate the cost of cloud services for customers. The Fresh team hopes to one day be able to provide shopping lists with the help of ChatGPT.

“ChatGPT helps troubleshoot and increase productivity in the long run by reducing the manual work required,” the document states.

However, there are still warnings. Amazon attorneys previously advised employees to use ChatGPT with caution. At the same time, they are prohibited from sharing confidential information with ChatGPT, such as internal emails or source code, to ensure security.

It’s unclear how Amazon’s AI plans will progress. Only at least 11 internal projects have taken shape, including a proposal to create a ChatGPT-style search bar for buyers.

“The virtual assistant can explain the pros and cons of different branded products, and cite and summarize previous user reviews. It will help personalize the shopping experience,” said one employee, adding that the tool to help answer questions related to AWS will soon enter the prototyping phase.

It has been suggested that ChatGPT is more advanced than similar services that Amazon offered before. For example, Amazon Comprehend, a language processing service, is “more cumbersome” than ChatGPT in turning survey data into meaningful information. Amazon Lex, a tool to help build chatbots, is too “boring”.

It is known that Amazon recently released its new AI building platform Bedrock and a model called Titan. They work across a range of consumer apps with the same features as ChatGPT, including the Alexa voice assistant and the Burnham home robotics project.

Employees are still curious about Amazon’s response to ChatGPT and innovative AI, so the topic is frequently brought up in internal meetings. In March, an employee asked AWS CEO Adam Selipsky about the company’s response and how AWS plans to “embrace the new paradigm.” Mr. Selipsky at the time did not provide specific information, but emphasized that the new technology would be applied to the whole Amazon, not just AWS.

Recently, CEO Jassy also mentioned Amazon’s expertise, noting that the application of next-generation AI makes the company “more accessible” and “easier to use”. “Amazon’s top leadership team is delighted. This is a big area of ​​focus for us,” said the Amazon CEO.

According to the Financial Times, Amazon is encroaching on many new business areas, especially artificial intelligence. While AI and modern technology can be found on AWS and Amazon’s own operations, many fear the retailer is falling behind in the race with Microsoft and Google.

“Amazon has to be aware of the big trend. Amazon needs to have its strategic response,” Jassy said, adding that he saw an opportunity if he partnered with small companies. One of them is Stability AI — a competitor to OpenAI.

“I think that’s interesting. Most of the big, high-tech companies like Amazon have been working on big, innovative AI models on their own for a long time,” asserts Jassy.

By: BI, FT