The news: Amazon’s Rufus chatbot ads, called sponsored prompts, are delivering a fraction of the volume of traditional on-site ads, per The Information.

One midsized seller that was profiled by The Information showed Amazon’s AI chat ads drove just 88 clicks since the start of the year versus 500,000 clicks from all Amazon ads for the same advertiser in the same period, implying well under 1% of click volume. Clicks are roughly half the cost of traditional Amazon ads—around 31 cents versus 50 to 70 cents—though stable benchmarks don’t yet exist and results vary by account. 

But despite the poor results, marketers see the format as a backdoor into Amazon’s AI black box.

• By analyzing which pre-written prompts Amazon generates, brands gain clues about how Rufus ranks products and what questions shoppers are actually asking. 
• Some advertisers are using these prompts to optimize their product detail pages, adding specifics like pricing rationale based on AI suggestions.
• Advertisers have access to prompt text, metrics, and associated ASINs, but no full conversation transcripts, limiting context. 

Trendspotting: Companies like Google, Amazon, and ChatGPT have all rolled out ads in chatbot interfaces in the past few months. How these AI ads appear and engage with users will likely change depending on early results and ad spend. 

Despite the visibility into product ranking, the chatbot ads still lack scale and control. For example, sponsored prompts currently include a specific brand name, targeting users who have already made a choice rather than those in the discovery phase.

What advertisers should do: Treat sponsored prompts as a research tool, not a sales driver. Use the Rufus data to refine product detail pages and understand AI-driven ranking signals. However, do not allocate significant media spend until Amazon provides transparency into full chat responses and expands prompts to capture high-funnel, unbranded queries.

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