Amazon just turned its entire ad business into an AI agent. At unBoxed on September 29, 2026, Amazon Ads merged its Ads Console and its DSP into one platform called Amazon Ads Agent, and made AI campaign setup the default way to buy. The beta numbers are the reason to pay attention: Full-Funnel Campaigns posted 67% higher long-term return on ad spend. Anyone selling on Amazon or buying streaming TV just got a new operating model.
What Amazon Actually Announced
Amazon used to run two separate buying tools. Sponsored ads lived in the Ads Console. Programmatic display, video, and streaming TV lived in Amazon DSP, which mostly agencies and big brands touched. Those are now one product, and the old names are gone. Everything sits under three campaign types: Sponsored Ads, DVA+ (Display, Video and Audio), and Full-Funnel Campaigns.
Full-Funnel Campaigns is the headline. You give it a goal and a budget, and it picks the channel mix, the creative, and the audiences across sponsored ads, streaming TV, and audio, then keeps adjusting. Amit Bhattacharyya, Amazon's VP of Agentic Intelligence, described it this way: "One campaign ties every format from streaming TV to sponsored ads, shares signals in real time, and tunes itself toward long-term growth."
In beta, Amazon says those campaigns delivered 67% higher long-term ROAS and a 29% lower cost to acquire new-to-brand customers. Advertisers who described their targeting in plain English, instead of building segments by hand, reached more than 25% more unique customers at more than 10% lower cost per impression. Full-Funnel Campaigns is open now to all U.S. advertisers. DVA+ starts rolling out in late October.
What This Means If You Spend Money on Ads
The biggest change is who does the work. Media planning, audience sizing, reach forecasts, and budget splits used to take an agency team hours. Now a seller types a question into a chat window and gets a plan back. Jason O'Toole, who runs commerce and retail media at dentsu, said his teams have stopped "spending hours on manual campaign setup" and now make adjustments directly in the conversation.
For small brands that matters more than it does for Procter and Gamble. Streaming TV on Amazon was effectively off limits to anyone without a DSP contract and a trader. Folding it into the same console as sponsored ads puts Prime Video inventory a few prompts away from a seller doing $40,000 a month.
My take: the 67% figure is Amazon grading its own homework, and "long-term ROAS" is a metric Amazon defines. Treat it as a ceiling, not a forecast. But the direction is clear. Platforms are absorbing the execution layer, so your edge moves to offer, creative, and what happens after the click. Tools like KenjiAI (kenjiai.com) are built for exactly this kind of shift, handling the follow up, booking, and nurture work that no ad platform touches once a lead shows up.
What to Do This Month
- Run one Full-Funnel Campaign as a test against your current manual setup. Keep the budget equal and the test window at least 30 days, since long-term ROAS needs time to show up.
- Track new-to-brand customers separately. That 29% acquisition cost claim is the easiest one to check against your own numbers.
- Write down your current cost per impression before you try natural language targeting, so you can tell whether the 10% savings actually shows up in your account.
- If you use an agency, ask them in writing how their fee changes when the platform does the planning.
Watch late October closely. When DVA+ goes live, the open internet and streaming TV inventory join the same agent, and Amazon will have the clearest full-funnel loop of any ad platform. Google and Meta will answer. Expect it fast.
Published by the Media Traffics | KenjiAI team. kenjiai.com
Source: Amazon Ads, "Introducing Amazon Ads Agent," September 29, 2026 and unBoxed 2026 announcements
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