- Amazon announced Seller Assistant workflows on September 23: automations that run continuously, even when the seller is not logged in to Seller Central. [1]
- The announcement says sellers review and approve actions before they are carried out. Amazon’s conference recap says the assistant can act on its own if the seller chooses. [1][2]
- A new plugin connects Seller Central data to Amazon Quick and, in beta, to Claude. It is limited to US stores for now. [1]
- Amazon says sellers accept the assistant’s recommendations more than 90% of the time, with no definition of the measure. [1]
- Every primary account holder can claim a free year of Amazon Quick Plus by December 31, 2026. The list price is $20 per user a month. [3][4]
- On Amazon’s own forum, two sellers ask for an opt-out, and one beta user reports using the tools for analysis but not yet for orders. [5]
- Start in recommend-only mode, put numbers on every guardrail, and read the action log weekly.
Three weeks ago at Accelerate, its annual seller conference, Amazon announced a broad upgrade to Seller Assistant, the AI tool inside Seller Central. [1] With the holiday quarter starting and Amazon now promoting the tools to sellers for Black Friday planning, this is the point where many accounts will decide whether to turn them on. [5]
The decision is about delegation, and Amazon’s own descriptions of how much is delegated do not match.
What changed
Seller Assistant launched in 2023 as a question-and-answer tool. A year ago Amazon gave it the ability to take actions when authorized, and TechCrunch reported it then as “an always-on AI agent.” [6] This year’s release adds three things. [1]
| Addition | What Amazon says it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | Keeps each seller’s pricing patterns, inventory cycles, and growth goals across sessions and tools | Seller Central, Quick, Claude |
| Workflows | Run continuously, “even when the seller isn’t logged in to Seller Central,” from a plain-language description and guardrails | Seller Central |
| Selling partner plugin | Connects listings, performance metrics, inventory levels, and sales analytics to an outside AI tool, which can also act on the account | Amazon Quick, and Claude in beta, US stores only |
The examples Amazon gives for workflows range from an alert to a change in the store: “Alert me if any of my top 10 products drop below a 4-star rating and draft a response plan,” and “Monitor my top category for competitive openings. If you see one, adjust my pricing and refresh the listings.” [1]
The same logic now runs in advertising. Amazon’s recap describes an auto-optimization feature that adds search terms that perform, pauses those that do not, and holds every bid under a maximum the seller sets. [2]
Does it ask first?
Here Amazon’s pages part ways.
“When it takes actions, sellers stay in control, reviewing and approving them before they’re carried out.” [1]
“Sellers choose whether it surfaces insights, drafts actions, or acts on its own.” [2]
The recap is not consistent with itself. It also reports Joy Chang, a director at Selling Partner Support, describing a model “with nothing happening without approval and every action logged.” [2] Amazon’s forum post for sellers reads more like the acting version. It says “Choose whether it recommends or acts, and every action is logged,” and suggests this instruction: “If a product’s conversion rate drops below [threshold], adjust my ad spend automatically.” [5] For the plugin, the same post is unambiguous: “all actions require your explicit approval.” [5]
A workflow that waits for approval and a workflow that acts inside limits are different products. The first cannot do anything at 3 a.m. except queue a request. The second can, which is the point of running while you are logged out. We could not see the settings screen, so we cannot say which description is right, or whether both are and the answer depends on the workflow. Find out in your own account before the first one goes live.
The numbers Amazon gives
All of these are Amazon’s statements about its own product. None comes with a method. [1][2]
| Claim | What is missing |
|---|---|
| Rolled out to over 90% of selling partners worldwide | Availability, not use |
| Hundreds of thousands of active users | What counts as active, and over what period |
| Sellers accept recommendations over 90% of the time | Which recommendations, and what counts as accepting |
| 90% of selling partners already use third-party AI tools | The survey or data behind it |
| New ad campaigns using auto-optimization saw a first sale 40% faster | Faster than what, and how campaigns were assigned |
| Advertisers using Ads Data Manager see 30% better return on ad spend | Whether those advertisers differ in other ways |
Two of them can be read against each other. Amazon speaks of delivering the assistant to “millions of sellers” and of “hundreds of thousands of active users.” [1] On those two figures, active users are a minority of the sellers the tool is aimed at. Whatever the 90% acceptance rate measures, it is measured among the people who chose to use it.
The last claim has the familiar shape of a comparison between advertisers who opted in and advertisers who did not. It does not show what the feature would do for you, which is the problem we walked through in incrementality testing.
Where the data goes
The announcement says Seller Assistant, built on Amazon Bedrock with Anthropic’s Claude models, “keeps seller data within Amazon’s infrastructure and never shares it outside of Amazon.” [1] That sentence covers the assistant inside Seller Central.
The plugin is a different arrangement. It connects a seller’s Amazon data “directly to their preferred AI agent,” and that agent “can act on it, the same way Seller Assistant does inside Seller Central.” [1] Amazon says these connections have “clear boundaries on what it can access, human approval on actions, and complete audit trails.” [1] When the tool at the other end is not Amazon’s, the data leaves Amazon because the seller sends it, and what that tool does with it is governed by its own terms.
The offer: a 12-month Amazon Quick Plus subscription for the primary account holder and two co-workers, for sign-ups by December 31, 2026. [3][1]
The list price: Plus is $20 per user a month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly. [4] Three seats for a year come to $720 at the annual rate, by our arithmetic.
Not stated: what happens in month 13. Put the date in a calendar when you sign up.
What sellers wrote back
Amazon posted the news twice on its seller forum, on September 23 and again on October 5 with holiday examples. [3][5] The replies are public, and most are not friendly. Two of the seven sellers who replied to the second post ask for the same thing. One wrote: “Please provide us an option to OPT OUT of your terrible AI!!” [5] One seller on the first thread expects to be charged later, once sellers have finished “debugging them for you for free.” [3]
The longest reply is the most useful, from a seller who has used Quick and the Claude plugin since the beta. The strongest use so far, the seller writes, “has been Amazon sales data analysis and inventory planning,” including fee reconciliation that used to mean downloading reports and reconciling them by hand. On letting it act:
“I have not yet allowed it to create new replenishment orders or take those actions directly, but I can see the path.”
A seller in the plugin beta, Amazon seller forum [5]
That is a small sample from a forum where unhappy sellers are the likeliest to post. It is also the only account we found from someone using the tools on a real catalog, and it describes a sensible order: analysis first, actions later.
How to turn it on without handing over the account
Start in recommend-only mode
Run every workflow as recommendations for at least two weeks. Keep a note of each suggestion you would have rejected and why.
Write guardrails as numbers
A floor price, a largest single price change, a maximum bid, a maximum order quantity. Amazon says workflows take “seller-defined guardrails,” and its ad feature holds bids under a maximum you set. [1][2]
Confirm the approval setting
Check in Seller Central whether an acting workflow waits for you or proceeds. Amazon’s pages describe both. [1][2]
Read the log on a schedule
Amazon says every action is logged with a complete audit trail. [1] A log nobody reads is not a control. Review it weekly, and daily during a sale event.
Decide what leaves Amazon
Before connecting the plugin, list what it exposes: listings, performance metrics, inventory levels, sales analytics. [1] Read the data terms of the tool at the other end.
Keep a comparison
Leave a set of comparable products outside the workflows for a month. Without one, you will have Amazon’s 90% and nothing of your own.
Margins on Amazon are already thin once fulfillment, storage, and ad charges are counted, as we showed in our piece on Amazon seller fees. An agent that changes prices and bids works directly on that margin. It is worth having, on the evidence of the one detailed report so far, for the analysis. Let it earn the rest.
Sources
- Amazon · Amazon gives sellers an even smarter Seller Assistant and a new plugin for Amazon Quick and Anthropic’s ClaudePrimary. Company announcement, September 23, 2026. All usage figures are Amazon’s own.
- Amazon Selling Partners · At Accelerate 2026, Amazon shares new AI tools as a force multiplier for independent sellersPrimary. Company recap, September 29, 2026.
- Amazon Seller Forums · New AI tools to sell smarter, free for a year, announced at Accelerate 2026Primary. Amazon’s post of September 23, 2026, with seller replies.
- Amazon Web Services · Amazon Quick pricingPrimary. Read October 13, 2026.
- Amazon Seller Forums · NEW AI Tools to Help You Grow Your Business this Holiday Season & BeyondPrimary. Amazon’s post of October 5, 2026, with seller replies. Forum replies are individual opinions.
- TechCrunch · Amazon launches AI agent to help sellers complete tasks and manage their businessesNews report, September 17, 2025, on last year’s release.
Frequently asked questions
What did Amazon announce for Seller Assistant?
On September 23, 2026, at its Accelerate conference, Amazon announced three things: persistent memory of each seller’s pricing patterns, inventory cycles, and growth goals; workflows that monitor and carry out routine tasks continuously, even when the seller is not logged in to Seller Central; and a selling partner plugin that connects Seller Central data to Amazon Quick and, in beta, to Anthropic’s Claude.
Can Seller Assistant change prices without my approval?
Amazon’s pages are not consistent. Its announcement says that when a workflow takes actions, sellers review and approve them before they are carried out. Its conference recap says sellers choose whether the assistant surfaces insights, drafts actions, or acts on its own, and its forum post gives an example that adjusts ad spend automatically. Confirm the setting inside Seller Central before you turn a workflow on.
Is the selling partner plugin available outside the United States?
Not yet. Amazon says the plugin is available in beta for sellers in its US stores, with international expansion to follow. The free Amazon Quick Plus offer is open to primary account holders globally.
What does the free Amazon Quick Plus offer include?
A 12-month Quick Plus subscription for the primary account holder and two designated co-workers, for sellers who sign up by December 31, 2026. Quick’s pricing page lists Plus at $20 per user a month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly. Amazon’s pages do not say what happens when the year ends.
Does my Amazon data leave Amazon when I use these tools?
Amazon says Seller Assistant keeps seller data within Amazon’s infrastructure and never shares it outside of Amazon. The plugin is a different case: it connects listings, performance metrics, inventory levels, and sales analytics to an AI tool the seller chooses, including Claude. Amazon says plugin interactions have boundaries on access, human approval on actions, and audit trails.
How many sellers use Seller Assistant?
Amazon says the assistant has rolled out to over 90% of its selling partners worldwide and has hundreds of thousands of active users, and that sellers accept its recommendations more than 90% of the time. It does not say how an accepted recommendation is counted or over what period.
What are sellers saying about it?
On Amazon’s seller forum, most replies to the two announcement posts are critical, and two sellers ask for a way to opt out. The most detailed reply, from a seller in the beta, calls sales analysis and inventory planning the strongest use and says the seller has not yet let the tool create replenishment orders.
Mikołaj Salecki
Writes about media, tech, and AI business for people who actually run digital. Former agency lead. Skeptic of frameworks that read better than they perform.
