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Amazon product pages can now be made with a generative AI tool that pulls information from a URL, the e-commerce giant announced Wednesday.
The new feature designed for sellers means that customers will likely see more and more product listings that have been fully created by AI when shopping on the site. Amazon says the new URL-based feature is designed to save sellers time by automating more of the listing creation process, and is expected to fully roll out to US sellers "in the coming weeks."
The new feature was created for sellers who already have their own standalone websites and want to be able to increase their overall reach by also selling the same products on Amazon. But there is a chance this duplicating feature could be used to quickly create counterfeit copy listings of others' legitimate products. Generative AI tools may mean faster and more listings, but it could also make fake sellers' lives easier, too. While Amazon forbids the sale of counterfeit products, users have complained online that it's been a big problem for years.
Amazon launched its Counterfeit Crimes Unit in 2020 in an effort to address the issue (and just last month, Amazon and BMW won a suit against a seller who offered fake BMW parts).
Considering this, the new URL tool bears a lengthy warning that tells sellers they must be the legal owner of the website's content in order to use the corresponding link.
"Failure to accurately represent your authority to use this content could result in action taken against your seller account and/or could subject you to legal ramifications," the disclaimer reads.
Reached for comment, an Amazon representative tells PCMag: "We have a number of controls in place to detect infringing content. In addition, copyright owners can notify us of alleged infringement, and we will investigate and take the appropriate actions."
Amazon already uses generative AI in a variety of other ways, with an existing tool that can generate products' description sections and new backgrounds for product ads.
Amazon also rolled out AI-powered review highlights in a "Customers Say" section last year that summarizes frequently mentioned tidbits from reviews. Sometimes these can be informative, and sometimes they can be downright funny.
Amazon says it's continuing to develop AI-powered features across its business. The tech giant offers Anthropic's new Claude 3 Sonnet and Haiku generative AI models through its Amazon Bedrock service for businesses, and says in its URL feature announcement that it's now "even more optimistic" about the future of its generative AI tools.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include comment from Amazon.