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Selecting a product on Amazon can be a challenge, especially given the often thousands of reviews a product can receive. To make this task easier, Amazon is currently testing a new feature that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automatically summarize reviews and highlight the most important information.
The basic idea behind this innovation is to provide customers with better guidance amid the plethora of opinions and reviews. In recent weeks, the company has begun testing a new feature. This AI-powered function analyzes all existing reviews of a product and searches for the central statements. It then automatically generates a compact summary from them, showing the product's pros and cons.
Currently, this function is available to selected users of the Amazon mobile app. However, it is only available in English for the time being and only affects certain product categories such as televisions, headphones and smartphones. Despite the still limited application, it is already apparent that the generated summaries have some weaknesses.
It is important to note that this feature is still in the testing phase. The automated summaries are so far occasionally contradictory and repetitive. For example, it can happen that the battery life of a laptop is referred to several times, while at the same time the performance is mentioned as a negative aspect.
The previous summaries tend to emphasize positive aspects more than negative ones. However, some arguments are too generalized to make sense in the context of the product. For example, the "ease of use" emphasized by AI for a smartphone could refer to both the intuitive user interface and the setup of the device.
Amazon describes the AI used as merely a "generative system." Nevertheless, the feature has a filter function that allows users to select certain parameters that are particularly important to them. In the case of sports equipment, for example, these could be properties such as durability, comfort and functionality.
Although AI-based summarization of reviews still has room for improvement, it could make the shopping process on Amazon more efficient in the future. By providing compact information, customers could make informed decisions faster and improve their shopping experience.