How does Amazon strike a balance between AI-driven efficiency in creative production and the risk of commoditization?
It’s a question Jay Richman, Amazon’s VP of product and technology, is often asked, he says on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Richman understands the concern that ad creative could become formulaic if brands rely solely on automated prompt-based generation.
But Amazon takes a fundamentally different approach, he says.
Rather than starting with a generic prompt, Amazon’s AI systems build each creative campaign from a foundation of product-specific insights, including customer reviews, marketplace comparisons, category data and what Richman refers to as “real-world knowledge” gathered from across the web.
“Every creative should be its own snowflake,” says Richman, who builds and oversees the AI systems that power Amazon’s ad creative tools for brands and sellers.
In 2023, Amazon released Creative Agent, a tool within its Creative Studio platform that allows brands to conduct custom research into what their customers are saying about their products and to uncover related trends across the broader marketplace.
Using this information, advertisers can generate ad creative at scale that still feels fresh, distinctive and aligned with their brand identity, Richman says.
But Amazon also sits on a lot of its own unique data.
For instance, Amazon can identify what really matters to customers – and, by extension, what brands should highlight in their ads – by analyzing behavior patterns, like the most common reasons for returns or which product features are most frequently praised in positive reviews.
Meanwhile, AI is also helping brands get faster.
Take Bird Buddy, a company that sells AI-powered birdhouses. It used Amazon’s creative agent to quickly shift from simple, image-based ads to more dynamic video spots, which is something the team didn’t have the resources to do before.
The brand saw a 338% jump in performance for its Father’s Day promotion.
“I think the biggest risk [with AI] is sitting it out or wading in late,” Richman says. “Your competitors most certainly are going to take advantage.”
Also in this episode: Balancing AI and human creativity (the new eternal question), how AI is opening up new opportunities for smaller advertisers and Richman’s take on the now infamous Coca-Cola AI-generated holiday ad.
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