Amazon’s AI wants to own online shopping data

Amazon already dominates online shopping, but now it's setting its sights even higher. With a new artificial intelligence-powered project called Starfish, the company aims to become the world's most complete and trusted source of product information. 

The goal? Make every listing on Amazon accurate, detailed and easy to understand, whether the product is sold by Amazon or a third-party seller. If the project works as planned, it could save sellers hours of work and help shoppers find what they need faster.

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Amazon website  (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)

What is Amazon’s Starfish AI project?

Starfish is a multi-year initiative built around generative AI. According to an internal Amazon document obtained by Business Insider, the system gathers product data from across the web, including external websites and images. It then uses large language models (LLMs) to create "complete, correct and consistent" product listings. This isn't a small update. Amazon expects Starfish to boost sales by $7.5 billion in 2025 alone by improving conversion rates and expanding product variety.

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How Amazon is using AI to improve product listings

Starfish builds on earlier AI tools that Amazon began testing in 2023. These tools could:

• Automatically generate product images and video ads
• Fill in missing data for third-party listings
• Rewrite product titles, bullet points and descriptions to be more relevant

Now, with Starfish, Amazon wants to scale that effort across millions of listings. The AI will also collect data from 200,000 external brand websites by crawling, scraping and mapping their content to Amazon's catalog. It's not yet clear whether Amazon's own web crawler, Amazonbot, is powering Starfish. But the company confirmed to Business Insider that Starfish is already supporting its new "Buy for Me" feature. This feature recommends products from external websites and lets shoppers buy them directly within Amazon's app.

A person shopping on Amazon (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)

Why Amazon built the Starfish AI for marketplace listings

Manually creating product listings is slow and often inconsistent. That's a problem when Amazon wants to offer a massive selection with reliable information. If shoppers can't find what they're looking for, or if the listings are vague, they may head elsewhere. Starfish addresses this by automating the tedious parts of listing creation. That helps sellers spend less time writing and more time selling. For Amazon, better listings mean higher conversion rates and happier customers. Plus, this move positions Amazon to compete more directly with Google Shopping, which also aims to be a central hub for product information.

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Amazon’s Starfish AI is expanding globally

Amazon is testing Starfish's effectiveness with A/B comparisons, measuring sales performance of AI-enriched listings versus standard ones. It's also rolling out bulk listing tools and preparing to expand the system globally. This isn't just about improving Amazon's website. It's about changing the way product information is gathered, created and shared at scale. 

A person shopping on Amazon  (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)

What does this mean for you as an Amazon shopper or seller

If you're a shopper on Amazon, this could mean faster access to clearer, more accurate product listings, especially for obscure or hard-to-find items. As Amazon's AI fills in missing details and improves titles and descriptions, the results should help you make better decisions with less research.

For sellers, this streamlines the work of creating listings. If you've struggled to write compelling descriptions or keep up with Amazon's catalog standards, the Starfish project may do much of the heavy lifting. That could save time, reduce errors and improve sales performance.

However, there are some trade-offs. As Amazon scrapes more data from across the web to power its listings, brands and smaller websites may worry about how their product information is being used. And if AI-generated content becomes widespread, quality and trust in listings may vary depending on how well the system works.

In short, expect a more automated Amazon shopping experience, with both conveniences and questions about how your data and the broader web are being used to power it.

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Kurt's key takeaways

Amazon's Starfish project signals a major shift in how e-commerce works. By combining web scraping, AI models and deep integration into its Marketplace, Amazon hopes to automate one of the most time-consuming parts of online selling. For buyers and sellers, this could mean more convenience and better results. But it also raises important questions about transparency, data ownership and the future role of AI in shaping what we see online.

Would you trust AI to tell you everything you need to know before you click "Buy Now"?  Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

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