Amazon adds eight visual search features to its shopping app

The most striking is a real-time AI image generator baked into the search bar of the Amazon Shopping app. As a customer types a description, say, a sofa with woven side panels or a shirt with a draped collar, AI-generated images materialise instantly beneath the search bar, shifting and sharpening with each new word. No need to know that the collar is called a “cowl neck” or the panel style “rattan.” Tap the image that matches your vision and shop from visually similar products. The feature is live now for apparel and home categories, with more to follow.

The second feature, “Shop by style,” serves up AI-generated shoppable collages in search results for apparel and accessories. Search “women’s silk shirt” and curated outfit grids appear, organised by themes such as “Urban luxe” or “Soft elegance.” Tap a collage to shop individual items, explore alternatives or swipe between styles.

Then there is Lens Live, Amazon’s AI-powered camera tool, which has been significantly upgraded. Point your phone at any product and a swipeable carousel of matching items appears at the bottom of the screen. Alexa for Shopping is now built directly into the experience, letting customers read product summaries, ask specific questions and add items to their cart or wish list without ever leaving the camera view. When the camera cannot identify an object, intelligent captions describe what is visible, keeping the search going regardless.

Four further features flesh out the toolkit. Visual Suggestions surface descriptive image filters as customers type broad search terms such as “flannel shirt,” helping narrow results before the search is even submitted. The text-plus-image search lets customers upload a photo to Amazon Lens and add written qualifiers, “like this, but in white,” to refine results further. An Amazon Lens widget for iOS lock screens lets shoppers launch a camera search without unlocking their phone, sitting neatly alongside existing search and orders widgets. And “More like this,” a tap-to-explore button on any search result image, pulls up visually similar products for customers who like what they see but want a different length, colour or cut.

The eighth feature is a circle tool within Amazon Lens that lets customers draw around a specific item within a larger image, isolating it for a more targeted search and adjusting the bounding box as needed.

All eight features are rolling out to customers in the United States via the Amazon Shopping app on iOS and Android. The direction of travel is unmistakable: Amazon is building a store where you need not know what something is called to find it. In the war for shoppers’ attention, the one who makes searching feel effortless wins. Amazon is not waiting around to find out who that might be.