Amazon is bringing the technology behind its Alexa for Shopping assistant to retailers outside of its own ecosystem through a new AWS solution designed to help brands build their own AI-powered shopping experiences.

Amazon said its new Agentic Shopping Assistant on AWS will allow retailers to create conversational shopping agents tailored to their own catalogues, customer data, business rules and brand voice.

The solution has reportedly been developed with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center and packages together architecture guidance, starter code and expert support inspired by Amazon’s own work on Alexa for Shopping.

Amazon said its AI shopping assistant was used by more than 300 million customers last year and drove nearly $12 billion in incremental sales. The retailer also claimed conversational shopping sessions convert at 3.5 times the rate of traditional keyword search.

Melissa Minkow, CI&T’s global director of retail strategy and insights, said the launch was a “sensible move” for Amazon as it looks to deepen its relevance beyond its own retail ecosystem.

“This is a sensible move for Amazon, as they possess the technology and need to foster agentic relationships with retailers outside of their own proprietary walls,” she said.

“Every agentic provider is trying to solidify their place in this new era of omnichannel, and this is Amazon doing that. It’s an opportunity to strengthen relationships with retailers and get closer to the consumer somewhere else.”

Kate Spade is already using the AWS solution to build its own AI shopping experience. Parent company Tapestry launched the Kate Spade AI Gift Concierge in April, designed to help shoppers find presents through natural dialogue around the occasion, recipient and style preferences.

The assistant was built on Anthropic’s Haiku 4.5 model, with Amazon Bedrock used for observability, authentication and evaluations. Amazon said the project moved into production after around two and a half months of testing.

AWS said the new solution would allow retailers to launch conversational shopping experiences in weeks, rather than building similar capabilities from scratch over several years.

The business is positioning the launch as a way for retailers to maintain direct relationships with customers as AI agents become more influential in product discovery and purchasing decisions.

Amazon said retailers would be able to combine AWS’s technical foundation with their own proprietary insight, category expertise and customer relationships, rather than becoming dependent on general-purpose AI search and recommendation tools.

The launch follows Amazon’s announcement last week of Alexa for Shopping, a next-generation assistant that brings together Rufus and Alexa+.