Amazon rebrands unified ad platform as Amazon Ads Agent at unBoxed

Amazon used its flagship unBoxed advertising conference, held this week in San Francisco, to rename its unified buying platform Amazon Ads Agent and to launch products that put its AI at the centre of media planning. The announcements were made on September 29.

Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+

Full-Funnel Campaigns combines sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV inside a single campaign. Advertisers specify the products, creative and budget, while Amazon's AI determines execution and continuously optimises toward outcomes such as new-to-brand customers and its Long-Term Sales metric.

DVA+ brings together Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV and programmatic display, video and audio buying. In its simplified mode, buyers pick an objective, budget and creative, and Amazon handles targeting and optimisation; advanced settings keep control over targeting, deals, supply sources, frequency and bidding.

AI moves from feature to core

Behind the launches is a wider overhaul of how Amazon wants advertisers to use its ad stack: a conversational interface is expanding into an AI layer covering planning, campaign creation, optimisation, measurement and support. In practice, that moves AI from a feature inside the buying tools to a more central role.

Kelly MacLean, a vice president at Amazon Ads, described the approach to Digiday as "bringing the power of programmatic advertising to all advertisers" and as "human-led AI supported." Amit Bhattacharyya, who leads full-funnel products and modeling at Amazon Ads, said advertisers were already trying to link Sponsored Ads and DVA campaigns themselves, which required separate setups.

Control and transparency in question

Observers say the changes collapse previously separate workflows, including the demand-side platform and the Sponsored Ads unit, and give the AI far more responsibility for how budgets are planned and deployed. The open questions are advertiser control, transparency and the rationale behind automated decisions.

In Full-Funnel Campaigns, advertisers approve creative but cannot select individual channels or audiences; Amazon provides format-level visibility and says it is working on greater transparency. It is also building explanations inside Amazon Ads Agent that tell buyers why it makes a particular targeting or budget recommendation.

Regulatory backdrop

The launches arrive while Amazon's advertising business faces scrutiny: in August the Federal Trade Commission and 22 state attorneys general sued the company, alleging it secretly used surcharges in its advertising auctions and that Sponsored Products advertisers paid over the odds. Amazon disputes the allegations. Asked whether the new tooling would show Sponsored Ads buyers how individual winning prices were determined, Amazon did not commit to that level of auction transparency.