Amazon is now showing certain US customers snippets of product reviews when shopping certain categories on a mobile device, it announced on Monday. But is it too good to be true? Is Artificial Intelligence capable of ingesting all product reviews and spitting out an accurate summary? If it were to go awry – even rarely, it could have a devastating impact on sellers impacted.
Amazon included a graphic showing the screen of a mobile device displaying a “Customer reviews” page showing the new feature. Right below the rating (4.7 out of 5) and number of ratings (139,475 global ratings), it showed the following:
“Customers say
“Customers like the stability, ease of use, and performance of the digital device. They mention that it’s way faster, the picture / streaming speed is excellent, and it’s a simple device to get connected. They also appreciate the performance, saying that it performs as expected and works great with LG 3D smart TV.
“AI-generated from the text of customer reviews“
Amazon explained: “Want to quickly determine what other customers are saying about a product before reading through the reviews? The new AI-powered feature provides a short paragraph right on the product detail page that highlights the product features and customer sentiment frequently mentioned across written reviews to help customers determine at a glance whether a product is right for them.”
TechCrunch pointed out a potential pitfall of the new feature: “Of course, the AI summaries will only be as good as the data they ingest. And Amazon has struggled for years with fake and misleading product reviews, including paid reviews,” but said Amazon plans to only summarize reviews from verified purchases.
In related news, The Information reported last week that Amazon is providing sellers with an AI tool that will write product descriptions.
eBay has also launched an AI tool that can automatically generate product descriptions, and in June, sellers discussed the feature on this Reddit thread. “I just saw it and gave it a try and I’m actually terrified/amazed and how well of a structured description it gave on my item,” the original poster wrote.
Another commentor on the Reddit thread wrote, “I’ve used it and I think it does a great job at using the title and item specifics to great a nice paragraph that entice the buyer to buy the item.”
One difference between the two AI tools – Amazon and eBay product-description generators appear to be optional, at least for now. But the Amazon product-review summary generator is not.
In June, we asked readers, “What If eBay Used AI to Summarize Seller Feedback?” You can see what readers had to say on the EcommerceBytes Blog.
Ina Steiner
