THE CRUNCH
Amazon has added more than 100 new shopping capabilities to Alexa ahead of the holiday season. The update lets you create and edit shopping lists and gift registries, move items between them, manage subscriptions such as changing a delivery from monthly to every three months, update delivery instructions like addresses and drop-off details, and ask about Prime or Audible subscriptions.
The assistant, known as Alexa for Shopping, can also handle billing questions, including queries about unrecognized charges and refunds, and pause or change recurring deliveries. It lives next to the search bar across Amazon's app and website, where it can already set price alerts, compare items and buy products automatically when they fall below a set price.
The update continues a pattern from this year: Amazon has steadily expanded its own assistant since its official launch in May, while blocking third-party AI shopping agents, including banning Meta's Muse bot from shopping on its store in September.
The features are rolling out to customers in the US. Amazon says the number of people using its agentic features has grown eightfold since the start of the year, and that over 400 million consumers have used Alexa for shopping in the last 12 months.