Amazon conversational chat usage now exceeds traditional search bar in US
Executives from Amazon, Criteo, Uber, and Vudoo discussed the evolution of retail media and interactive shopping at the IAB Australia summit. Amazon reported that AI-led conversational shopping now exceeds traditional search bar usage in the U.S., while other participants highlighted the importance of feed quality, shoppable editorial content, and standardized attribution.
Key Takeaways
- Amazon's conversational shopping usage in the U.S. has surpassed the search bar following the May 2026 merger of Rufus and Alexa into a unified assistant.
- Internal Amazon data claims 75% of surveyed customers think about shopping multiple times per week, blurring the lines between typical entertainment and retail sessions.
- Criteo's Agentic Commerce Recommendation Service recorded up to 60% relevancy improvement in internal testing by prioritizing products based on deep commerce intelligence over text semantic matching.
- Uber reported significant redemption rates for in-vehicle advertising that serves BWS vouchers and Coles retail media offers to riders based on real-world travel patterns.
Why It Matters
The transition from keyword search to conversational discovery marks a structural change in how streaming video services and retail media networks monetize audiences. For platforms like Prime Video, this validates the 'ad is the new storefront' strategy, where interactive units bypass the traditional marketing funnel. However, the compression of recommendations from 50 search results to roughly five named AI suggestions creates a winner-takes-all environment. B2B stakeholders should watch the upcoming integration of Amazon's interactive remote-enabled ads on Samsung TV Plus as the first external test of this conversational-to-cart infrastructure.
Additional Context
The shift toward agentic commerce is supported by broader technical and market milestones reached in the first half of 2026. Per Amazon's Q4 2025 reporting, the assistant formerly known as Rufus generated $12 billion in incremental annualized sales and achieved a 60% higher purchase rate than traditional keyword search. This momentum facilitated the May 13, 2026, launch of 'Alexa for Shopping,' which combined Rufus's research capabilities with the Alexa+ voice interface to create a persistent shopper profile spanning mobile apps, web browsers, and Echo Show devices.
Related developments at the 2026 NewFronts highlight the expansion of this tech into non-owned ecosystems. According to announcements from Samsung Ads and Amazon in June 2026, Samsung TV Plus became the first external FAST platform to support Amazon’s remote-enabled interactive video technology. This integration allows viewers to use their remotes to add products directly to an Amazon cart during an ad, reflecting the industry's drive to collapse discovery and purchase into a single, two-second interaction.
Concurrently, IAB Australia’s 2026 'State of the Nation' research found that while 66% of Australian agencies now rate their retail media experience as good—up from 44% in 2025—the lack of standardized omnichannel attribution remains a top industry hurdle. Per Mi3 reporting in July 2025, investment growth is being fueled by reallocated trade and social media budgets, with Australian retail media spend projected to reach $3 billion by 2027. These figures suggest that while the discovery tech has matured rapidly, the industry's measurement frameworks are still catching up to the speed of agentic commerce.
Read full article at ppc.land
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