TLDR
Amazon announced Amazon Ads Agent at unBoxed 2026, retiring its 14-year-old ads console by merging it with the demand-side platform into one AI-driven interface across 20-plus markets, including Australia. Advertisers using natural-language targeting in early tests reached 25 per cent more unique customers at more than 10 per cent lower cost-per-impression.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
One console, three campaign types, fourteen years later
Amazon ran two separate buying environments for over a decade. Advertisers managed Sponsored Products in one interface and programmatic buys through the demand-side platform (DSP), a technology that lets buyers purchase ad inventory across multiple sources in one place, in another, with manual work bridging the gap. On 29 September 2026, at the unBoxed conference at Moscone West in San Francisco, Amazon closed that gap.[1]
Amazon Ads Agent consolidates three campaign types, Sponsored Ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns, and Display, Video and Audio Plus (DVA+), into a single AI-first interface replacing both the old DSP workflow and the 2012 self-serve console.[2] Full-Funnel Campaigns is live in the United States now. DVA+ begins rolling out from late October 2026.[2]
The performance numbers
Advertisers who used natural-language prompts to apply campaign targeting recommendations saw more than 25 per cent additional unique customers while lowering cost-per-impression by more than 10 per cent, according to Amazon's own release.[2] These figures come from Amazon's internal testing, not an independent audit, and agencies will want to run their own benchmarks when the platform reaches their markets.
Kelly MacLean, Amazon's Vice President of Engineering, Science and Product, put the rationale plainly. "Rapid advancements in AI are allowing us to deliver better advertising with improved performance across all channels and customer objectives," MacLean said.[2]
What agencies say about the workflow shift
Amazon's practical claim is that manual campaign setup, the hours spent in spreadsheets and separate interfaces configuring bids, audiences and placements, can be compressed into a conversational exchange with the platform. Jason O'Toole, EVP and Head of Commerce and Retail Media at dentsu, said the shift is already changing how his teams operate. "The conversational experience in Amazon Ads Agent is fundamentally changing how our teams work. Rather than spending hours on manual campaign setup and optimization, we can now make human-informed optimizations directly," O'Toole said.[2]
Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+ have spent two years training advertisers to accept a similar proposition: hand the machine more control, receive better aggregate outcomes, trust that the platform is pointing in the right direction. Amazon's version sits inside a retail environment where purchase signals are first-party and immediate, not inferred from browsing behaviour across third-party sites.
Alexa enters the sales funnel
Branded Conversations, a separate feature that lets brands load product knowledge directly into Alexa for Shopping's conversational replies, will launch in the United States in January 2027.[3] The intent is to place brand expertise inside the moment a shopper asks Alexa to help them decide between products.
Muthu Muthukrishnan, Vice President of Sponsored Ads at Amazon Ads, said shoppers are already using the voice assistant to research and compare before buying. "Shoppers are increasingly turning to Alexa for Shopping to research products, compare options, and make purchases. With Branded Conversations, we are giving brands the ability to bring their product expertise and storytelling into those conversations, at the moment of decision, bringing significant benefit to both shoppers and advertisers," Muthukrishnan said.[3]
Review Requests, a one-tap tool for soliciting verified buyer reviews, launches in November 2026, one month before Branded Conversations arrives.[3] Both features are US-only at launch, with no Australian timing confirmed for either.
Australian buyers and the unified console
Amazon Ads Agent is listed for markets across North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa, with Australia explicitly included.[4] Australian media buyers and agencies are in scope for the unified console from the outset, even as the Alexa-specific features stay on a US-first timeline.
For agencies whose workflows were built around separate DSP and Sponsored Ads management, different logins, different reporting pulls, different optimisation cadences, the consolidation is the practical change to plan for. The natural-language interface means the platform accepts campaign instructions in plain English rather than requiring manual configuration of each parameter. Whether that compresses agency hours or shifts the value agencies offer will depend on how much human judgement the new interface genuinely requires, and whether the 10-per-cent cost-per-impression improvement holds outside Amazon's own testing environment.
Amazon has not published a specific Australian go-live date for Amazon Ads Agent beyond its inclusion in the 20-plus market list released on 29 September 2026.[4]
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Xaviery Malinao writes for Prompt the Market on how brands and agencies are adapting to answer engines, drawing on Bushnote's work with clients across search, AI search and content.
