Amazon is no longer offering Inspire, a social commerce feature that included video and photo information about products that it added to its mobile app in 2022. A page on the company's website reads: Thank you for using AmazonInspire to discover and buy new products on Amazon. Please note that Inspire is no longer available in the Amazon shopping app.
The message advises shoppers to use its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Rufus, the website homepage, the AI shopping guide or the search function using text or images.
Regarding the closure of Inspire, an Amazon spokesperson said: "We regularly evaluate features to better address our customers' top concerns, and therefore, Inspire is no longer available."
While testing the app feature with a small number of Amazon employees in August 2022, an Amazon spokesperson told PYMNTS that the company is constantly testing new features to help make customers' lives easier.
At the time, Inspire was showing customers product video and photo feeds in a format similar to TikTok. The feed contains a series of product images and videos, and shoppers can like, comment on, or buy immediately.
Amazon launched Inspire in December 2022 to specific customer groups, and Shopping Director Oliver Messenger said that short videos are a very useful medium that can help people discover and understand products.
In August 2023, it was reported that Amazon was offering below-market prices to influencers as it sought a steady stream of fresh videos to keep customers engaged.
Bloomberg reported at the time that content creators at the time typically charged an average of $212 per video for the type of content Amazon wanted, while Amazon charged just $25 per video for videos that included two or more products.
Amazon launched its artificial intelligence conversational shopping assistant Rufus in beta in February 2024 and made the assistant available to all U.S. customers in the Amazon shopping app in July.
Rufus can answer questions about a variety of shopping needs and products. It is trained on company product catalogs, customer reviews, community Q&A and web information.