Overview

On January 18 2024 Helium 10 released a Buzz recap that highlighted three pivotal changes: Amazon’s rollout of a generative‑AI shopping assistant, Walmart’s expansion of its pay‑per‑click (PPC) ad formats, and a Helium 10 user conference held in Germany. Each update reshapes how sellers discover products, fine‑tune listings, and allocate advertising dollars across the two biggest U.S. marketplaces, making the information essential for any Amazon or Walmart merchant.

Key Points

• Amazon Shopping AI debut — Amazon launched a conversational assistant that interprets natural‑language shopper requests and returns real‑time product suggestions, shifting organic traffic from exact‑match keywords to intent‑driven results.
• Walmart adds video and display PPC options — New Sponsored Brands video placements and Sponsored Display ads give sellers granular inventory‑level targeting, opening a creative avenue beyond traditional text ads.
• German Helium 10 summit — Over 300 European sellers participated in workshops covering multi‑marketplace research, with live demonstrations of Helium 10’s newest keyword and market‑tracking tools.
• Keyword strategy pivot — Because the AI favors conversational phrasing, sellers are urged to embed longer, question‑style terms into backend keywords, such as “lightweight laptop for travel” instead of just “laptop.”
• Higher CTR on Walmart video ads — Early testing shows video‑based Sponsored Brands ads generate roughly a 12 % lift in click‑through rate compared with text‑only equivalents, prompting a re‑evaluation of budget splits.
• Cross‑border performance boost — German merchants who applied Helium 10’s marketplace‑specific keyword recommendations reported a 15 % increase in Amazon.de sales within weeks of implementation.

How Amazon Shopping AI Works

1. Query intake — A shopper enters a natural‑language request, for example “I need a lightweight laptop for travel.” The AI parses the sentence to extract intent, desired attributes, and price expectations.
2. Real‑time catalog matching — Amazon’s engine scans its live inventory, ranks items based on relevance, stock status, and seller performance metrics, then assembles a shortlist of products that meet the parsed criteria.