JL: How do you envisage AI will change customer experience on Amazon?
KK:I think it’s going to change drastically sometime in the next few years. You’ll start seeing slow movements towards it. We’re already seeing that with the way Amazon is doing the review summaries and the way they’ve changed a few other things.
I think the customer is going to be able to go to Amazon and instead of typing in a keyword and getting a list of results, they’re going to type in a more of an experience : “I’m going to the beach in Florida In July, what do I need to take?”
Amazon’s going to know either to ask additional questions or it’s going to know from past history that you’re a family of four, with two young kids, that one of you, sunburns easily because you’ve bought a bunch of sunscreen in the past and that the weather in July in that part of Florida that you’re going to is this.They know that you’ve already got 3 beach blankets that you purchased in the past. So in this case Amazon may prompt you and say “Do you need a new blanket?”
And so it’s going to spit out a bunch of results based on this information, rather than you having to type in “beach ball”, “beach furniture”, “Sunscreen” and go through this list of results.
Search is going to evolve based on what you’re doing, and so that’s going to change the way sellers optimize their listings. You are starting to see this with some of the semantic stuff that Amazon is doing now. I think they’re going to be using AI to actually analyze your listings and so keyword stuffing and all of that stuff is going to go away.
It’s going to be important to have attributes and to have good quality pictures. Make sure your pictures are clear and not misunderstood, because I think they’re going to be using AI to actually analyze your images. And if something in there doesn’t quite look right.and the AI can’t recognise your product, it could completely miscategorize you.
The customer experience is going to dramatically improve, but it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight, rather it’s going to be evolving. Amazon is not going to do anything that would jeopardize their advertising revenue, so until they figure out exactly how they’re going to make sure they don’t lose any advertising revenue, you’re not going to see a lot of changes.
But I think it’s going to be drastically changing. And the whole gaming ship that we do now is going to go out the window.
JL: Do you think that voice search will become a more prominent way to buy products now that Alexa is AI?
KK: I don’t know about that. I still think people like to look at pictures.
Voice search might be for repeat purchases, for example “give me some more toilet paper” or “I need some more flour. Give me the one I got last time”.
When people are shopping and looking for ideas and gifts, I don’t think they want voice search, so I don’t see voice search ever becoming anything huge in the near future.
People want to see things. Since they can’t touch it and smell it like they can in the store, they want to at least see it. It’s just going to be an auxiliary way of selling.
JL:How do you foresee AI will change how Sellers sell on Amazon?
KK: Number one, it’s leveling the playing field for people that aren’t native speakers or don’t quite understand the avatar of a western person. If they can master AI, they can nail the listing and the avatar.
You’re going to be able to create images, take stuff out, add stuff in, create some really amazing imagery, and the keyword gaming system is going to become diminished.
And so, where you’re finding these holes on keywords and trying to make sure you have every keyword in your listing, is not going to be necessary. What will be necessary is to properly describe your listing, make sure it’s in the proper category, has proper images, and then the semantic indexing algorithm and the AI will figure it out from there.
The algorithm is going to know so much.That’s why it’s even more important now to actually develop a brand and be a true branded product and have an avatar and own your own customer list as well.
JL:What are some of the essential AI tools that Amazon sellers should test?
KK: There’s so many of them.
There’s Shulex that a lot of people use.There are tools that can analyze your whole list of reviews like ReviewPulse, but there are about a 100 of them and there’s more every day.
You’re seeing some of the bigger software companies like Helium 10, DataDive, Jungle Scout and ZonGuru starting to implement and integrate some AI tools into their products.
But as far as individual tools, there are a dime a dozen out there. Some are a little bit better than others, but they’re used for very specific tasks and most of them don’t last very long.
I can’t recommend a specific one that everybody must use.
JL: Do you think AI would be able to replace agencies in the near future?
KK: No, they’re not going to replace agencies, but they’re going to change the way agencies work.
Agencies will need less people. You still need a human element, whether that’s writing a newsletter, whether that’s doing PPC.
But the AI can replace a lot of the VAS, so a lot of the ground work can be replaced with AI.
For example, creating reports, doing basic analysis and other tasks that had to be manually done in the past are going to get done by AI and these people will lose their jobs.
But you still need smart humans overseeing AI. And so, an agency that has 80 employees might cut down to 15 or 20. And it’s going to make the agency more profitable and more nimble and able to handle more clients with less people.So I think it could be a good thing, but in the short term, some people will lose their jobs.
JL: What is one area AI cannot replace humans when it comes to Amazon?
KK: Product selection.The product selection is still too critical.
AI can make suggestions and give ideas, but that ultimate decision, I don’t think AI can do.
Some of that is because some of the decision comes from intuition, some of that is gut and some is experience. AI can help you refine things and it can present you with the 20 options that make sense, but ultimately humans are going to have to be the ones that decides that.
AI is going to replace humans in the warehouses but at the moment Amazon is having trouble with drone delivery; it’s not going so well and it’s a little shaky. Also, the robots in the warehouse are very slow. Amazon will improve these but you will always need the human element.
In addition AI needs direction. Humans are way more creative and that creativity can not be surpassed by a machine at this point. So when it comes to creative marketing, creating package design, AI can be great for brainstorming, great for idea generation, but the human still rules.
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