Amazon is significantly expanding its AI-driven shopping technology with the launch of Lens Live, an innovative upgrade to the existing Amazon Lens feature. Unveiled on Tuesday, Lens Live offers a real-time visual search experience that enables consumers to discover products by simply pointing their smartphone camera at items in the real world.

This new tool builds on Amazon’s commitment to AI-powered retail innovation and competes directly with other visual search technologies such as Google Lens and Pinterest Lens.

What is Amazon Lens Live, and how does it work?

Lens Live enhances the traditional Amazon Lens, which allowed users to snap a picture, upload an image, or scan barcodes to find products online. The key difference with Lens Live is its live, interactive interface—a swipeable product carousel appears at the bottom of the screen as users point their camera at objects, delivering instant product matches from Amazon’s vast inventory.

This seamless integration of AI and augmented reality is designed for convenient in-store comparison shopping, helping shoppers find the best deals while browsing physical retail locations.

AI Integration and Amazon Rufus

Lens Live also integrates with Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, Rufus, providing AI-generated product insights, summaries, and conversational prompts to enhance the shopping experience. Rufus can answer questions on product details, helping customers make informed decisions without leaving the app. This combination of visual AI and conversational AI enhances the overall user journey in digital and physical shopping environments.

Broader AI Initiatives at Amazon

The introduction of Lens Live complements several other AI-powered features Amazon has deployed recently, including:

AI Shopping Guides tailored to individual preferences
AI-Enhanced Product Reviews that summarize and analyze customer feedback
AI Tools for Accurate Apparel Fit during online shopping
AI Audio Product Summaries delivering quick spoken highlights
Personalized AI Shopping Prompts to assist with discovering new items
AI Tools for Merchants to optimize product listings and reach

These initiatives reflect Amazon’s aggressive push into the generative AI space, making shopping faster, smarter, and more personalized.

Technology Behind Lens Live

Lens Live is powered by Amazon SageMaker, a robust cloud-based machine learning platform that enables scalable deployment of AI models. The feature leverages AWS-managed Amazon OpenSearch for fast and accurate product matching, showcasing Amazon’s strengths in cloud infrastructure alongside retail innovation.

Availability and Future Expansion

Lens Live is currently available on the Amazon Shopping app for iOS, initially rolling out to “tens of millions” of U.S. users. While Amazon has not confirmed global expansion plans, the potential to bring this AI visual search technology to other markets represents a major opportunity for reshaping how consumers interact with retail products worldwide.

Impact on Shopping Behavior

Lens Live lets shoppers compare prices and find deals in real-time while they are in stores. It helps them gather product information instantly. This tool creates a seamless connection between online and offline shopping. It gives consumers AI-powered insights to make quick buying decisions on the spot. Lens Live is set to change how people shop across different channels.

FAQs

1. How is Lens Live different from the original Amazon Lens?

Unlike Amazon Lens, which requires uploading images or scanning barcodes, Lens Live provides a live, interactive view where product matches appear instantly as you scan your surroundings.

3. What role does AI assistant Rufus play in Lens Live?

Rufus enhances the shopping experience by providing AI-generated product summaries and answering shopper questions via conversational prompts for deeper product understanding.

4. Is Lens Live available globally?

Currently, Lens Live is available on iOS for tens of millions of users in the U.S. Amazon has not yet announced plans for global rollout.

5. Which technologies power Lens Live’s AI capabilities?

Lens Live is built on Amazon SageMaker for scalable machine learning and uses AWS-managed Amazon OpenSearch to deliver fast, accurate product matches.

Amazon Lens Live: Scan Any Item and Quickly Finds Matching Products For You