Amazon wants to use AI to match shoppers to the right products. Some users say their tool is doing a great job cosplaying a judgmental aunt.
The e-commerce giant launched its “About You” feature — basically a customer dossier — earlier this year, pitching it as an editable list of preferences that Amazon has inferred to help shoppers navigate its vast marketplace. With a few clicks, shoppers can pull up Amazon’s profile of them, see the conclusions it has drawn, and correct or remove details they don’t want shaping their recommendations.
The tool has renewed attention on social media, particularly on Threads, where it’s now trending. Amazon users say its observations have been enlightening — if not a touch snide.
“I stumbled upon a page of assumptions that Amazon has made about me,” one shopper wrote, while including a screenshot of Amazon’s About You apparently saying she “has flat buttocks.”
“I’m literally speechless,” they said.
Another customer said that Amazon determined she “has a husband” — and that the “husband has skinny legs.” A third said the page had identified a rather specific habit: “Uses phone in the shower to read Kindle books.”
“I mean yes but wtf,” the shopper wrote.
Amazon introduced About You in May as part of a broader AI shopping push. The company says the recommendations come from customers’ purchase histories, searches, saved lists, product reviews, and conversations with Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping assistant.
Amazon has offered personalized shopping recommendations for years. About You is different because it gives customers an unusually direct view of the profile behind those suggestions — and, in some cases, an invitation to discover what Amazon thinks their purchases and Alexa conversations say about them.
Those sometimes sharp remarks — and the order of their importance — seem particularly illuminating to some social media users.
“Has cats,” one shopper said the bot observed, then “treats cats as biological children.” And then, finally, “has husband.” Another person on Threads posted a screenshot of the tool saying she “does not trust people easily” under a list of “Interests & Hobbies.”
Meanwhile, on Reddit, a shopper said the system recognized that they do “not know what truffle is supposed to taste like.”
The feature is available in Amazon’s Shopping app, on mobile web, and on desktop. In the app, you can find what Amazon thinks about you by tapping the following:
- Account
- Shopping preferences
- About You
Shoppers can view and edit personal details that shape their recommendations by tapping on each observation.
Several Business Insider reporters spent Tuesday morning checking their own profiles. The results were mixed: One account incorrectly identified an editor’s partner’s name while correctly clocking their slow-but-steady kitchen-appliance upgrade. Another reporter said Amazon groked her preference for organic produce.
What does your Amazon “About You” say? Drop the observations in this story’s comments section, and we might include them in a future story!
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