Amazon is rolling out a new AI-powered shopping feature designed to make product research faster and more natural inside the Amazon Shopping app. Announced Tuesday, the update lets customers ask questions about an item and get real-time, conversational audio answers, delivered by what Amazon describes as “AI-powered shopping experts.”
The idea is simple: instead of scrolling through long product descriptions, digging through specs, or reading pages of reviews, shoppers can ask what they want to know and hear the key points right away. Amazon says the system pulls together information such as product features, customer feedback, and other helpful details to create a discussion-style response. So if you’re wondering whether a coffee maker is beginner-friendly, or whether a sweater feels itchy based on what buyers have said, you can ask directly and get an audio answer in seconds.
A notable part of the experience is how the conversation adapts. Amazon explains that the AI doesn’t just repeat canned responses. It’s designed to build on what’s already been discussed, avoid repeating itself, and provide more relevant information as the chat continues. In other words, each question helps shape what comes next, aiming to feel more like talking with a knowledgeable in-store associate than chatting with a basic FAQ tool.
This new option is called “Join the chat,” and it lives within a broader feature known as “Hear the highlights.” “Hear the highlights” provides short audio summaries on millions of product pages in the Amazon Shopping app, giving shoppers a quick overview before they decide whether to dig deeper. Amazon began testing these audio summaries last May, and the feature is currently available in the United States, though audio summaries only appear on select products so far.
Using it is straightforward. Open a product page in the Amazon Shopping app, then tap the “Hear the highlights” button located beneath the product image. You can listen to a brief summary, and if you want to get more specific, tap the “Join the chat” icon to ask follow-up questions using either text or voice. Amazon also notes that the audio can keep playing while you continue browsing, which could make comparison shopping smoother and less time-consuming.
“Join the chat” is also part of Amazon’s expanding set of AI shopping tools built to help customers discover, evaluate, and choose products with less effort. The company has been adding features like Rufus, a generative AI assistant for researching products and comparing options; Interests, which tracks preferences and surfaces new items that match them; and “Help me decide,” which recommends products based on a shopper’s searches, browsing behavior, and purchase history.
For shoppers, the big promise here is convenience: quicker answers, less scrolling, and a more guided experience when deciding what to buy. For Amazon, it’s another step toward making the product page feel more interactive—turning research from something you read into something you can talk through.
