Amazon launches Alexa for Shopping feature to verify message authenticity

Amazon is trying to combat impersonation scams with a new feature that allows you to use its AI assistant to determine whether an email, text message, or phone call actually came from the company. With the update, you can ask Alexa for Shopping about a message you received, and it will use AI to compare it “against a record of every message Amazon has sent,” while also analyzing its contents, formatting, and the sender.

As noted by Amazon, the assistant will only confirm that a message is real if it’s “completely certain.” An example shared by Amazon shows a customer asking, “Did Amazon just text me an OTP from 98626? Message came around 4:50pm.” Alexa for Shopping responds by confirming that Amazon actually did send the message, saying, “This was a genuine One Time Password from Amazon.”

If Alexa for Shopping determines a message isn’t from Amazon, it will instruct customers to check their orders in the app and contact Amazon’s support team directly. The company launched a similar feature earlier this year that lets you forward suspicious messages to “[email protected]” to check if they’re real.

This isn’t the only recent update Amazon has launched for Alexa for Shopping, as it added an “Update Me When” feature that can now help you track new product releases as well.