Our Coders were front and center for every announcement, and we’re cutting through the noise to unpack the innovations that matter most, plus how advertisers can harness them to drive measurable results.
AI Is the New Engine of Advertising
If last year was about testing AI’s potential, this year is about scaling it. Amazon unveiled a suite of AI-powered tools that are fundamentally transforming how brands build and execute campaigns.
Creative Agent: AI That Builds Campaigns From the Ground Up
Amazon’s new Creative Agent is more than a tool, it’s a creative partner. The AI engine analyzes brand assets, customer reviews, and marketplace data to generate full campaign storyboards, including high-quality video and TV concepts. Amazon reports that early testers shared a 12% sales lift from AI-generated imagery, proving that this technology isn’t just a novelty, it’s performance-driven.
The Creative Agent also supports audio and TV formats, automatically optimizing creative for different screen sizes and channels. For advertisers stretched thin across formats, this means less production lag and more scalable creative storytelling.
Code3 POV: Amazon is clearly positioning AI as a force multiplier. The opportunity for brands lies in feeding these systems with robust creative assets and well-structured AMC data to train and refine outcomes. The more strategic your inputs, the more intelligent the outputs.
Full-Funnel Campaigns: Unified by AI
Amazon’s next major leap is toward true full-funnel orchestration. Their new Full-Funnel Campaign Builder unites Sponsored Ads, Streaming & TV, and Audio Ads under one AI-powered workflow.
With the launch of Inventory Hub, advertisers can now integrate linear and streaming data, enabling more holistic planning and measurement across screens. For the first time, brands can design connected-TV strategies rooted in measurable outcomes rather than siloed media buys.
The scale is massive: Amazon now connects to 4,500 streaming services, and Prime Video reaches 130 million monthly viewers (315 million globally), making it one of the most powerful distribution engines in digital advertising.
Code3 POV: Inventory Hub changes the game. Cross-channel automation means advertisers can finally manage upper-funnel reach and lower-funnel conversions in tandem, unlocking cohesive storytelling and consistent optimization across formats.
Smarter Optimization, Unified Management
One of the biggest friction points for Amazon advertisers has always been fragmentation: separate dashboards, disconnected insights, and manual reporting. With the new Single Campaign Manager, that era is ending. With it, advertisers are able to create, optimize, and report across all ad types from one central interface. Combined with Brand+ and Performance+, Amazon’s AI models now optimize for incremental growth and efficiency simultaneously.
Amazon also expanded its Authenticated Graph, now covering 90% of U.S. households, providing privacy-safe targeting and enhanced attribution accuracy.
Code3 POV: This is Amazon’s most advertiser-friendly move yet. A unified ecosystem means less operational drag and more strategic control, setting the stage for brands to activate true omnichannel performance within a single Amazon-native system.
Sponsored Ads Get Smarter and More Dynamic
Amazon’s Sponsored Ads are evolving from static placements into adaptive discovery engines. Upcoming changes include:
- Reserve Share of Voice: Advertisers can secure top-of-search placements upfront at a fixed rate. Sponsored Brands Collections: AI curates the best product mix for each shopper, dynamically adapting imagery and offers.
- AI Prompts for Shoppers: New interactive prompts surface additional product details when customers hesitate mid-scroll.
- Sponsored Product Video: Delivers a 15% lift in conversion, and the format continues to expand across placements.
Code3 POV: Sponsored Ads are becoming less about bid efficiency and more about creative relevance and personalized storytelling. Brands that pair strong product imagery with data-driven narrative will dominate high-intent moments.
Amazon’s New North Star: AI-Powered Customer Obsession
If one theme dominated unBoxed 2025, it’s this: Amazon’s customer obsession now runs on AI. Every announcement, from creative intelligence to full-funnel automation, makes one thing clear: Amazon is building a future where scale, efficiency, and intelligence converge into a single, frictionless ecosystem.
And the advancements are undeniably powerful. So powerful, in fact, they surface a natural question for brands: If Amazon’s AI can optimize campaigns, build creative, and automate workflows… do we still need an agency partner?
It’s a fair question. But here’s the truth:
Automation doesn’t replace expertise. It elevates the brands who know how to harness it.
Amazon is building the rocket ship, but brands still need an astronaut.
AI can execute, but it can’t set the mission.
AI can generate, but it can’t interpret nuance, understand category dynamics, or account for competitive pressures.
AI moves fast, but it still needs direction, calibration, and human judgment.
That’s where agencies like Code3 excel.
Amazon’s AI tools are only as strong as the strategic inputs, creative foundations, testing frameworks, and measurement sophistication behind them. The real performance gains come from knowing:
- what signals to feed the machine
- which levers unlock incremental growth
- where to push, where to pause, and where to challenge the algorithm
- how to layer brand goals, budget realities, and channel dynamics into an AI-driven system
That’s the difference between using Amazon’s automation, and mastering it.
The future of retail media won’t be about who clicks the buttons, it’ll be about who knows how to make the machines think smarter.