Dive Brief:
- Amazon customer engagement with Alexa for Shopping, its agentic AI shopping assistant, is skyrocketing, with active users nearly doubling in the second quarter year over year, executives said on a Q2 2026 earnings call Thursday.
- More than 350 million shoppers have used Alexa for Shopping, which replaced the Rufus shopping assistant in March, over the past 12 months, according to Jassy. Interactions in the second quarter are up five times year over year.
- U.S. customers who use Alexa for Shopping spend 40% more per order on average compared to shoppers who don’t use the AI assistant, according to Jassy. Additionally, shoppers who try Alexa+ join Amazon Prime at nearly 25% higher rates.
Dive Insight:
Alexa is proving valuable for Amazon, and more customers are taking advantage of Prime’s speedy delivery options as the company continues to build an ecosystem based on convenience.
“We find that everywhere Alexa goes, it drives momentum for the business,” Jassy said on the call.
Alexa is a valuable asset for Amazon, especially as more customers use agentic shopping assistants and comfort grows. The tools are particularly popular among younger consumers, with 62% of Gen Z and millennials saying they prefer to shop using AI tools, according to an April survey from The Harris Poll and Quad.
Agentic commerce is expected to continue growing in the coming years, and the market as a whole could account for $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, according to a March study by ICSC and McKinsey & Company.
AI shopping is one part of the equation for Amazon’s retail strategy; Amazon Prime is another. Membership in the subscription program grew double digits year over year, according to SVP and CFO Brian Olsavsky.
Prime’s fast delivery options are resonating with customers. The number of items delivered same day or overnight rose 40% year over year in the first six months of 2026, according to Jassy.
Amazon reported strong results for its latest quarter. Net sales rose 20% year over year to $200.6 billion in the second quarter of 2026, according to an earnings release. Operating income rose 43% year over year to $27.5 billion.
