Key facts
- Amazon's "About You" feature provides customers with inferred preferences.
- Users are sharing screenshots of the tool's observations on social media.
- The feature uses purchase history, searches, saved lists, reviews, and Alexa conversations.
- Customers can view and edit their inferred details.
Amazon's "About You" feature, introduced earlier this year, is drawing widespread attention on social media as customers share the AI-generated dossiers Amazon has created about them. The tool aims to help shoppers navigate the e-commerce giant's vast marketplace by presenting inferred preferences and allowing users to edit or remove them.
Users have taken to platforms like Threads and Reddit to share screenshots of the feature's sometimes humorous and often blunt observations. Examples include inferences about physical characteristics like "skinny legs" and "flat butts," as well as personal habits such as "uses phone in the shower to read Kindle books" and relationship statuses like "has husband."
Amazon states that the recommendations are derived from customers' purchase histories, searches, saved lists, product reviews, and interactions with its Alexa for Shopping assistant. Unlike previous personalized recommendations, "About You" offers a more direct and transparent view into the profile Amazon has constructed, prompting users to discover what their online activity and voice commands suggest about them.