Auto-Optimisation: Amazon Is About to Manage Your Keywords for You. Here Is What It Actually Does.

A setting called Targeting with AI appeared in the Amazon Ads console under Settings at the account level. When it first appeared, the status showed "No strategy available", nothing to enable, nothing to test. That has now changed. The first strategy is live: Prime Big Deal Days, running until October 8, 2026. What Just Became Available Previously, the feature existed at the campaign level only. The account-level setting is new. One checkbox, "Apply to active campaigns", now applies the seasonal strategy across all eligible campaigns simultaneously. The Prime Big Deal Days strategy adds seasonal keywords and product targets to your eligible Sponsored Products campaigns ahead of the event, then pauses them automatically once it ends. It runs separately from your existing targeting, your current keyword lists and product targets stay untouched. Auto-pause rules are built in. A target is paused automatically when any of the following occur: No impressions in 3 days No clicks in 7 days No conversions after 15% of average daily budget spent No conversions after 20 or more clicks in 14 days     The Case For and Against Testing It Amazon's seasonal data is better than most advertisers' keyword research. Having relevant terms surface automatically and pause themselves when they stop performing is a real efficiency gain, particularly for teams managing large keyword lists across many campaigns. The risk is the account-level application. One checkbox applies the strategy to all active campaigns. Seasonal keywords could land inside campaigns built for very specific purposes, diluting their focus. And if campaign budgets do not increase to accommodate the new targets, the seasonal additions compete with your proven keywords for the same daily spend. Match types and bid levels for automatically added targets are not publicly documented, which makes it difficult to predict spend impact before it happens. What to Do If you want to test it: enable it on campaigns with broader targeting and flexible budgets, not tightly structured ones where keyword precision matters. Monitor spend and search term reports daily during the event window. If you would rather skip it: the setting is opt-in. Nothing activates unless you check the box. Either way, open Settings in your Amazon Ads console and check the current status. The next seasonal strategy, likely around Black Friday or Q4, will appear the same way, with or without a separate announcement. If you want to stay updated on Amazon changes, subscribe to our blog. If you need support with PPC, DSP, AMC, analytics, or a long-term growth strategy, contact the ANavigator team at info@anavigator.co  Book a call to get a FREE AUDIT by the link below:     Book a call – FREE AUDIT   Follow my Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn:  / amazon-digest-for-brands-7232361008185372672   Follow me on LinkedIn:  / ookovalov Follow ANavigator on social media:  / anavigator    /@anavigator_official  / anavigator7    / @anavigators     LinkedIn page to contact us:   Author: Oleksandr Kovalov Role: Founder & CEO @ ANavigator — The ANavigator Team

Amazon Ads held unBoxed 2026, its yearly advertising conference, in San Francisco in September, and AI was at the center of almost every announcement.   🏁 The highlights - Amazon Ads Agent is now one platform for Sponsored Ads, DSP and the new campaign types. You'll be able to plan, analyze and create ads by chatting with it. - Two new campaign types: Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+, which combines display, video, and audio. - Brands will be able to feed product expertise into Alexa for Shopping and ask verified buyers for reviews through ads. - New tools let AI agents work with Amazon Ads and AMC directly.   📆 What's coming when - Now: Full-Funnel Campaigns (US), Sponsored Services (US) - Late October: DVA+ - November 2026: Review Requests - January 2027: Branded Conversations (US) - Coming months: Ads Agent conversational features   📌 Contents Amazon Ads Agent: one place for all your advertising Two new campaign types: Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+ Branded Conversations in Alexa for Shopping Review Requests ads Also from unBoxed Final thoughts   1. Amazon Ads Agent: one place for all your advertising Amazon Ads Agent (expanded closed beta, rolling out over the coming months) Amazon renamed its unified ad platform Amazon Ads Agent. The bigger change is that you'll increasingly manage campaigns by asking it questions in plain language. - One platform. Ads Agent brings the Ads Console and Amazon DSP together. Sponsored Ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+ are now all managed in the same place. - Media planning. You can ask it to size audiences, forecast reach and suggest how to split your budget. It can also compare how much new reach different options would add. - AI targeting. You describe the audience you want, and it recommends products, categories, keywords and Amazon audiences to target. Amazon says advertisers using it reached 25%+ more unique customers at a 10%+ lower cost per impression. - Sponsored Products guidance. It finds optimization opportunities in your Sponsored Products campaigns. You can apply them in one click. - Analytics by conversation. Instead of building reports, you ask questions about performance. Nearly 1,000 metrics are available this way, including new-to-brand, long-term sales and peer benchmarks. - AI creative. Amazon's AI creative tools now work inside the same conversation. You can turn existing product assets into display ads and TV-quality video, and Amazon reports up to 71% more product coverage and up to 15% sales growth for advertisers using them. What this means for you: The biggest change here is how you'll work day-to-day. Reporting and planning that used to take hours could take a few questions. We'd still check the agent's recommendations against your own data, especially in the first months. Read more about Amazon Ads Agent updates here   2. Two new campaign types: Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+ Amazon introduced two campaign types that hand more of the media decisions to its AI. Full-Funnel Campaigns (US, available now) - How it works. You set the goal, and Amazon's AI manages the channel mix, audiences, creative and optimization across Sponsored Ads, display, video and audio. - Beta results. Amazon says beta advertisers saw 67% higher long-term return on ad spend and 29% lower cost to acquire new-to-brand customers. These are Amazon's own figures. DVA+ (rolling out from late October) - One campaign. Display, video and audio run in a single campaign with one goal and one budget. - Two setups. You can choose a simple setup where AI makes most decisions, or advanced programmatic controls. These include targeting, supply selection, deals, frequency caps and bidding strategies. What this means for you: Full-Funnel Campaigns are an easy way for brands that have only run Sponsored Ads to test upper-funnel media. The trade-off is less control over where the money goes, so start with a clear goal and a limited test budget. Read more here about Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+   3. Branded Conversations in Alexa for Shopping Branded Conversations (US, January 2027) Brands will be able to shape how Amazon's AI shopping assistant talks about their products. - Your expertise. Brands provide product knowledge, such as which product suits which need, how products differ and which items work well together. Alexa for Shopping uses it alongside Amazon's own data from detail pages and Brand Stores when answering shoppers. - Example. A skincare brand can explain which cleanser suits oily skin and which suits sensitive skin. A shopper who asks for help building a routine then gets that answer. - Labeled as ads. These answers are clearly marked as Sponsored. What this means for you: More shoppers now ask AI instead of typing keywords, and this is a way to make sure your products are explained correctly. It's worth collecting the questions customers ask most, along with your best answers, before launch. Read more about the Branded Conversations update here   4. Review Requests ads Review Requests (November 2026) A new ad format that asks recent buyers to rate your product. - Who sees it. Ads reach verified buyers who recently purchased your product, on busy pages like the Amazon homepage. - One tap. Customers can leave a star rating in one tap, then add text, photos or video if they want. - Early results. Amazon says products in early testing got around three times as many ratings and reviews each week. What this means for you: This matters most for new launches, where a low review count often holds back conversion. It gives you a direct way to ask buyers for ratings through Amazon's own system. Read more about the Review Requests ads update here   5. Also from unBoxed - Tools for AI agents. MCP Server Lite lets AI agents work with Amazon Ads without loading the full toolset. The AMC Expert Tool turns a plain-language question into an AMC SQL query, which makes AMC far easier to use without SQL skills. Source - Sponsored Services. A new ad format that connects shoppers with local service pros like plumbers and movers, shown on product, order confirmation and tracking pages. It's live in the US for eligible Yelp advertisers and doesn't affect most product brands. Source - Announced earlier. Amazon also featured Campaign Intelligence, Auto-optimization and Ads Data Manager, which we covered in our Accelerate 2026 digest. It also featured the ChatGPT Ads pilot for select US advertisers using Amazon DSP, which was announced on September 10. Source   6. Final thoughts Almost everything at unBoxed comes back to one change. Amazon wants you to manage advertising by talking to an AI agent rather than clicking through campaign settings, and the new campaign types hand more decisions to Amazon's AI. That will save time, but it also means less visibility into why the system makes the choices it does. Brands that set clear goals, test carefully and keep checking results on their own will get the most out of it. Not sure which of these updates are worth acting on for your account? Book a free audit and we'll go through it with you.   If you want to stay updated on Amazon changes, subscribe to our blog. If you need support with PPC, DSP, AMC, analytics, or a long-term growth strategy, contact the ANavigator team at info@anavigator.co  Book a call to get a FREE AUDIT by the link below:     Book a call – FREE AUDIT   Follow my Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn:  / amazon-digest-for-brands-7232361008185372672   Follow me on LinkedIn:  / ookovalov Follow ANavigator on social media:  / anavigator    /@anavigator_official  / anavigator7    / @anavigators     LinkedIn page to contact us:   Author: Oleksandr Kovalov Role: Founder & CEO @ ANavigator — The ANavigator Team