Amazon sellers say misleading AI product reviews threaten sales

A Bloomberg review of dozens of review summaries revealed that the AI isn’t consistent when it analyses customer comments and generates its blurbs. Some highlight critical feedback and others don’t. — Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Shopping on Amazon.com Inc has long entailed scrolling through pages and pages of often redundant customer feedback. In an effort to make the task less onerous, the company in August began using artificial intelligence to convert billions of reviews into brief summaries consisting of a few sentences apiece.

As is often true with generative AI, the results aren’t perfect. In some cases, the summaries provide an inaccurate description of a product. In others, they exaggerate negative feedback. This has potential implications not just for customers, but for Amazon merchants who depend on positive reviews to boost sales.