The news: Conversational and agentic AI were key topics of discussion at Amazon’s 2026 unBoxed conference. Fresh announcements included Branded Conversations; Display, Video, and Audio (DVA+); and Sponsored Ads.

“Shopping is rarely resolved with just a single prompt [and] is a back-and-forth conversation. To guide that well, a brand needs to stay in the conversation, not just show up at the start of it,” Muthu Muthukrishnan, VP of sponsored products and brands, said during the unBoxed opening keynote.

Zooming in: Amjad Jbara, director of conversational advertising at Amazon, shared four main pillars of Branded Conversations in an EMARKETER discussion at unBoxed: letting brands communicate key differentiators, brand messaging, and product details and then map recommendations based on users’ needs.

But Amazon’s plan to integrate brand-provided information into its consumer-facing answers may face shopper skepticism. Fifty-five percent of US adults would trust AI recommendations less if they knew advertisers influenced the answers, per Ipsos, and just 14% would trust them more.

Another challenge could be marketers’ difficulties in developing a genAI-optimized presence across both search and AI journeys. However, Amazon feels confident that its combination of AI-led optimization and creative production tools will help brands manage user experience (UX) and product perception while maintaining authority over the context provided.

Recommendations for brands: Experiment with Amazon’s Branded Conversations ad format, tracking whether brand influence and authority helps engagement and conversion without eroding shopper trust.

Testing conversational commerce early can help support off-site generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies by measuring how AI-powered interactions affect the shopping journey. However, focus on balancing influence with authenticity to avoid turning AI answers into overt sales pitches.

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