Amazon has introduced a novel AI art generator aimed at enhancing the performance of product advertisements on its platform. This tool enables advertisers to create realistic lifestyle-oriented backgrounds for product images, eliminating the need for traditional Photoshop editing or plain white backgrounds.
The primary objective, according to Amazon, is to maximize the impact of ads while minimizing the effort required. As many users of e-commerce website builders are aware, standalone product images against plain white backgrounds often fail to engage potential customers. Amazon’s AI tool is designed to infuse a sense of real-world context into otherwise stark product images, akin to the company’s ‘View in your room’ feature, which utilizes augmented reality to allow users to visualize online products in their own living spaces.
Amazon’s own example showcases the potential benefits of this tool. Compared to standalone product images, featuring a product within an AI-generated kitchen background in a sponsored mobile ad could result in click-through rates that are up to 40% higher. This eliminates the need for physical locations, elaborate photography setups, or manual photo editing. The tool generates mostly realistic settings, with quality akin to that of leading stock image websites.
For many advertisers, creating visually appealing assets has proven to be a challenge. Amazon’s survey revealed that nearly 75% of advertisers facing difficulties with ad campaigns encountered their most significant obstacles during the ad creation and creative format selection phase. Advertisers need to meet the expectations of increasingly discerning consumers, which include a certain level of visual polish.
With the introduction of this tool, content creation on the platform is streamlined. Advertisers can select their product, which triggers the generation of a set of lifestyle and brand-themed images. Short text prompts can be employed to make adjustments to the generated images, a process familiar to users experienced with text-to-image generators. Multiple versions of images can also be created for testing and performance optimization.
Colleen Aubrey, Senior Vice President of Amazon Ads Products and Technology, emphasized, “With the launch of our image generation capability, any advertiser can now use a simple tool to create unique, lifestyle creative assets that make their campaigns more compelling, and at no additional cost.”
The genAI tool is currently rolling out to select advertisers, with plans for further expansion in the future. It’s important to note that this tool generates artificially created art, and while it shows promise, there may be areas for improvement, as seen in Amazon’s press release where certain details may require refinement based on customer feedback.
