Amazon, in its endless quest to remove as many barriers to online shopping as possible – an interesting move, given how few barriers there are to online shopping – has brought AI-powered image-based shopping to South Africa. It’s called Amazon Lens, and it makes picking up a pair of slacks as easy as snapping a picture of them.
Perhaps online shopping should require at least a couple of firing neurons, but who are we to judge? Amazon Lens does have its uses. Say a customer isn’t quite sure which part they need for a replacement — Amazon’s AI-powered shopper can step in to help using an image, barcode, or even the phone’s live camera.
Spending less time in the Amazon
The feature is currently available to customers via the Amazon Shopping app, which got its start when Amazon launched locally in 2024 to much fanfare. It has since failed to capitalise on the market, allowing Takealot to retain control of the scene. Amazon reckons more than 10 million customers use Lens every month, something it obviously hopes will scoop up some of SA’s more loyal online shoppers.
Throw Amazon Lens a screenshot containing multiple products, and it may just get a little confused. Amazon’s ‘Circle to Search’ (no, not that one) function lets users single out the product they want more information about.
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“This practical approach extends across our store, from deep learning algorithms that analyse sizing relationships between brands to tools that make goods easier to find. We’re using AI to solve everyday problems, making shopping more intuitive, personalised, and friction-free,” said Robert Koen, MD, Amazon Sub-Saharan Africa.
We briefly tested Amazon Lens on an Android smartphone — just tap the camera button in the app’s search bar — and weren’t surprised to see it spit out some decent results, though it struggled to land on the exact product it saw in some cases. Each result comes with a bunch of pre-written questions to help buyers, like “Which OS does it support?” when faced with our Redragon mouse.
