Amazon’s New Agentic AI for Sellers: 5 Core Capabilities and Real Playbooks to Cut TACoS, Avoid Fees, and Fix Risky Listings

Sep 29

Amazon just turned Seller Assistant into an always-on, agentic AI that can reason, plan, and take action across inventory, compliance, account health, ads, and growth strategy; here’s exactly how to use it to drive performance.

Table of contents

What Changed About Seller Assistant and Its Significance
What is Agentic AI and How is Amazon Agentic AI Powered
Core capability #1:Smarter Inventory & FBA Fulfillment
Core capability #2: Proactive Account Health Management
Core capability #3: Automated Compliance Navigation
Core capability #4: High quality Advertising with Creative studio
Core capability #5: Comprehensive Data for Business Growth
Additional Use Cases: 5 Common Problems and Agentic Playbooks
Stay in Control: Approval Steps & Guardrails

What Changed About Seller Assistant?

Amazon upgraded Seller Assistant from a reactive Q&A bot to a proactive, agentic AI. It watches your business, proposes plans, and stages actions you can approve—spanning:

Intelligent inventory & FBA optimization
Proactive account health management
Automated compliance navigation
Professional-quality advertising with Creative Studio
AI-powered business growth strategy

Value notes: available at no additional cost, U.S. first with expansion to more countries; actions are permission-based (human-in-the-loop) and never publish without your OK.

What it won’t do (yet): publish changes without approval, override your price floors or budgets, open support cases in your name without review, or train global models on your confidential catalog data.

What is Agentic AI and How is Amazon Agentic AI stacked

Plain definition: Agentic AI is an assistant that can break a goal into steps, use tools, and prepare actions for you to approve—not just answer questions. Think teammate, not chatbot.

Under the hood: Seller Assistant is powered by Amazon Bedrock, leveraging Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude, layered on ~25 years of seller expertise. This combo enables proactive monitoring, evidence-backed recommendations, and permissioned (stage-then-approve) execution.

Data & privacy (one-liner): Amazon indicates the assistant does not train models on your confidential account data; it uses your context to make recommendations that you approve.Smarter Inventory & FBA Fulfillment

Smarter Inventory & FBA Fulfillment

What it does: monitors inventory, flags slow movers before long-term/aged storage fees, recommends markdowns vs. removals, and prepares shipment plans to balance sell-through vs. OOS risk.

Quick-start checklist (30 seconds):

Turn on alerts for Inventory Age and sell-through <1.0
Ask for discount timing + coupon suggestions to avoid Day-181 fees
Request shipment plan to keep 20–30 days cover on hero ASINs
Require stage-then-approve for all price changes and removals

  
    Action ladder by age (use this mini table):
    
        Days aged
        Move to make
      
        120–149
        
          Monitor; boost relevancy queries with SP; tighten negatives
        
        150–164
        
          Small price test (≤5%); refresh creative; push high-CVR terms
        
        165–174
        
          Add 7-day coupon; consider Outlet if appropriate
        
        175–180
        
          Stage removal/Outlet plan; finalize pricing to clear risk

Playbook — “Fee Shield” (copy/paste prompt):
“Identify SKUs aged 120–170 days with 30-day sell-through <1.0. For each, recommend (1) markdown % to reach sell-through ≥2.0 before Day-181, (2) Sponsored Products bid/budget tweaks and negatives to prioritize top-CVR queries, (3) optional 7-day coupon. Stage pricing and ad changes for my approval and estimate surcharge savings.”

Guardrails: max 15% markdown; ±10% daily-budget change; no removals without approval.
KPIs: aged units ↓; surcharge $ avoided; sessions ↑; CVR ↑; TACoS flat/down.

Proactive Account Health Management

What it does: continuously monitors AHR, ODR, VTR, Late Shipment Rate, safety/compliance incidents; explains what triggered risk and proposes fixes you can approve.

Helpful thresholds to watch:

ODR < 1%
Valid Tracking Rate ≥ 95%
Late Shipment Rate < 4% (MFN)

Playbook — “Health Triage”:
“Scan the last 30 days for performance/policy risks (ODR, VTR, product safety). Summarize root causes, propose ranked fixes with expected impact, and stage any listing/content or customer-service changes for approval. Color-code red/amber/green by threshold.”

KPIs: AHR stability, time-to-resolution, warnings avoided.

Automated Compliance Navigation

What it does: checks required documents (e.g., UL for electronics), warns about risky claims, proposes compliant copy, and—after approval—applies fixes.

Before/after micro-example (pesticide misflag):

Before (risky): “Repels mold and bacteria on surfaces.”
After (compliant): “Designed for easy cleaning and odor control; no claims about disinfecting or preventing microorganisms.”

Playbook — “Un-Suppress Me”:
“Audit my catalog for suppressed or at-risk listings (policy/compliance/attributes). Explain the trigger and propose compliant copy/attribute fixes. After approval, apply the updates. Prioritize top-revenue ASINs.”

KPIs: suppressed count ↓; ad eligibility restored; sessions & CVR recovery.

High quality Advertising with Creative Studio

What it does: a chat-based creative partner that researches your product/audience, brainstorms concepts, drafts storyboards, and produces video & display assets—in hours, with reasoning you can review.

Formats to request now:

Sponsored Brands Video
Sponsored Display image/video variations
DSP short video & display cut-downs

24-hour asset checklist: product hero shots, logo lockup, one-line value prop, 3 benefit proof points, brand dos/don’ts, CTA.

Mini-plan (3-lane creative test):

Benefit angle (speed/ease/durability)
UGC-style (hands-on demo)
Comparison (your ASIN vs. generic alternative)

Playbook — “ACOS Diet”:
“Analyze last 30 days of SP/SB. List top 50 cost-driving terms with CVR <3% and low ROAS; propose negatives and bid cuts. In parallel, use Creative Studio to produce 3 Sponsored Video concepts per hero ASIN around top converting benefits. Stage all changes and creatives for my approval.”

Guardrails: bid cuts in 10–15% steps; budget floors to protect rank; human review for creatives.
KPIs: ACOS/TACoS ↓; CTR & Video CTR ↑; CVR ↑; blended ROAS ↑.

Comprehensive Data for Business Growth

What it does: turns sales patterns into category opportunities, seasonal forecasts, and coordinated promo + inventory + campaign plans—staged for your approval.

Seasonality timeline (example):

T-30 days: lock inventory ETA; draft promo; brief creatives
T-14 days: stage coupon/deal; warm up discovery campaigns
T-7 days: push hero creatives live; finalize price & budget caps

Playbook — “Launch Stack” (new ASINs):
“For ASIN X, draft a 30-day launch plan: listing optimization checklist; competitive price band; FBA send-in to avoid OOS; PPC structure (auto discovery → broad/phrase → exact defensive). Generate 2–3 video/static concepts in Creative Studio. Stage campaigns with seed keywords and daily budget caps.”

KPIs: sessions, CVR, rank trajectory, new-to-brand %, OOS avoidance.

Additional Use Cases: 5 Common Problems and Agentic Playbooks

1) Featured Offer (Buy Box) loss from price competitiveness

Why it’s common: Amazon’s price-competitiveness checks trigger frequently, especially around promos and external price mismatches.
Impact: Visibility drops, ad delivery throttles, conversion tanks.

Agentic prompt (paste):
“Monitor Featured Offer eligibility for my top 100 ASINs. When we lose it—especially for ‘competitive external price’—identify the suspected external reference, and propose the smallest price/promo change to restore eligibility. Draft a case note if misclassified. Stage changes for approval.”

Guardrails: Margin floor; limit price moves to ±5%.
KPIs: Featured Offer rate, sessions, CVR, TACoS.

2) Stranded inventory → IPI and capacity limits

Why it’s common: Listing/compliance tweaks and catalog errors strand units; sustained stranding drags IPI and tightens restock/capacity limits.
Impact: Storage costs without sales, constrained growth during peaks.

Agentic prompt (paste):
“Check ‘Fix Stranded Inventory’ daily. Group by root cause and revenue impact. Propose fastest fixes (attribute edit, relist, appeal) and quantify IPI impact. If inbound capacity is tight, propose a reallocation by ASIN priority. Stage feeds/edits for approval.”

Guardrails: No removals without approval; prioritize top-20% revenue ASINs.
KPIs: refund rate ↓; RDR/NCX ↓; contribution margin ↑.

3) Returns abuse / refund-without-return (RNR) patterns

Why it’s common: Low-friction returns plus auto-refund rules create abuse clusters (repeat buyers, certain categories).
Impact: Margin erosion, NCX/VoC risk.

Agentic prompt (paste):
“Scan last 60 days for abnormal RNR/refund clusters (repeat customers, reason-code patterns). Draft SAFE-T claim templates where eligible and propose listing improvements (size charts, images, bullets) to reduce RDR/NCX. Stage customer-service macros and listing edits for approval.”

Guardrails: Minimum dollar threshold for claims; human approval on all claims/macros.
KPIs: fee errors caught; $ reimbursed; time-to-correction.

4) Wrong FBA fees from measurement (size/weight) errors

Why it’s common: Periodic re-measures or inbound discrepancies change dimensions/weight and silently raise fees.
Impact: Hidden COGS inflation; mispriced ads & promos.

Agentic prompt (paste):
“Weekly, compare current FBA fee preview to historical dimensions/weight. Flag variances >5%. Prepare re-measurement requests with evidence (photos/specs) and a reimbursement claim list if overcharged. Stage cases for approval.”

Guardrails: Escalate only when GM% impact is material; standardize evidence pack.
KPIs: fee errors caught, $ reimbursed, time-to-correction.

5) VoC/NCX spikes and listing quality gaps

Why it’s common: Amazon is leaning harder on VoC/NCX; negative themes (fit/usage confusion) surface quickly.
Impact: Suppressions, rank/ads performance decline, potential account-health hits.

Agentic prompt (paste):
“Pull VoC for ‘Poor/Very Poor’ ASINs. Extract top complaint phrases and returns reasons. Propose concrete fixes (image swaps, sizing tables, copy changes, packaging notes). Stage edits and draft proactive CS macros. Include expected KPI impact.”

Guardrails: One change per test cell; 2-week minimum test window.
KPIs: NCX ↓; VoC health ↑; returns ↓; CTR/CVR ↑.

Stay in Control: Approval Steps & Guardrails

Golden rule: Stage-then-approve only. Put your limits in every prompt.

Standard guardrails to paste into prompts:

Price floors & max discount %
Budget bands (e.g., ±10%/day) and bid change caps
“No removals or case submissions without my approval”
“Show expected KPI impact and confidence with each proposal”

Scoreboard to track weekly: TACoS, ACOS, CTR, CVR, Inventory Age buckets, IPI, Featured Offer %, suppressed count, VoC/NCX.

FAQ (cost, data privacy, where to find it)

Is there an extra cost? No—Amazon positions Seller Assistant’s new AI at no additional cost.
Will it change my listings or prices without approval? No. It stages actions and waits for your approval.
Does it train on my confidential data? Amazon indicates it does not train global models on your confidential account data.
Where do I find it? Seller Central → Seller Assistant (agent chat). For ads, Amazon Ads console → Creative Studio → chat.
Which ad types can it help with today? Sponsored Brands Video, Sponsored Display (image/video), DSP short video & display.
How do I measure success? Track TACoS/ACOS, surcharge $, Featured Offer %, suppressed count, VoC/NCX, fee reimbursements.