Amazon’s Lens Live turns your camera into a shopping assistant

Amazon is launching Lens Live, an AI shopping feature that lets you point your iPhone camera at real-world objects and instantly see buying options on Amazon. As you pan around a room or focus on a single item, Lens Live runs an object-detection model in real time, identifies what it sees, and compares results against the marketplace’s billions of listings.  When it finds similar items, the app presents a swipeable carousel with options to add products to your cart or wishlist, so you can move from discovery to checkout in a few taps. The feature is rolling out first in the Amazon Shopping app on iOS, with broader availability planned in the coming weeks. Amazon positions Lens Live as a step beyond its existing visual search tools, which already let you upload an image, scan a barcode, or snap a photo to find look-alikes.  By keeping the camera active, the new experience makes it easier to scan shelves, identify furniture and decor, or check which accessories match a device you own. Lens Live also connects to Amazon’s AI assistant, Rufus, which can summarize product descriptions and answer questions about materials, fit, compatibility, and use cases on the spot.  The approach resembles Google’s Gemini Live, which also lets users scan surroundings and ask questions, but Amazon’s version centers on shopping with a buy button and quick add-to-cart actions. That emphasis aims to reduce friction for customers who already rely on Amazon for fast purchasing and reviews, and for brands seeking a shorter path from interest to order.  Amazon says Lens Live will learn from how people use it, and the results are suggestions rather than exact matches. For now, the rollout is limited to iOS. Amazon says availability will expand to more customers soon. Shoppers can slowly pan to scan a whole room, pause on one object to refine matches, or tap Rufus for comparisons, summarized specs, and plain-language guidance, bringing real-time answers and shopping into a single view.