Amazon Rejigs AI Assistant For Online Sellers: Report

According to a Bloomberg News report, the Seller Assistant by Amazon is designed to forecast demand and assist in inventory management.

Amazon.com (AMZN) has reportedly rejigged its artificial intelligence assistant for online merchants as part of an effort to support sellers facing a challenging holiday season, which is being shaped by ongoing US-China trade tensions.

According to a Bloomberg News report, the Seller Assistant by Amazon is designed to forecast demand and assist in inventory management. It does so by informing sellers of the quantity of products that should be ordered, the likely timing for offering discounts during the holiday season to boost sales, and when to retrieve inventory from Amazon’s warehouse to avoid storage fees.

The report noted that the Seller Assistant’s first version was trained to respond to merchants' queries, and the reworked design would help them with selling suggestions.

Retail sentiment on Amazon was in the ‘bullish’ territory compared to the ‘extremely bullish’ territory a day ago, with message volumes at ‘high’ levels, according to data from Stocktwits. Shares of the company were down 1% in early trading.  

According to the Bloomberg report, Amazon Vice President Dharmesh Mehta said that the model was trained on 25 years of shopping behavior and includes supply-chain disruptions of the pandemic, as well as the decades-high inflation and soaring interest rate periods.

Mehta noted that the goal was to assist merchants “navigate volatility.” “It’s going to save sellers money and it’s going to save them time,” he told Bloomberg.

The report also noted that other e-commerce consultants and software companies provide similar assistance, but Amazon offers its US merchants the Seller Assistant for free and plans to eventually deploy it globally.

Shares of Amazon have gained 5.5% this year and have jumped over 24% in the last 12 months. 

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