By Tyrel Beutler, Mars United Commerce
The landscape of retail media is transforming rapidly through Amazon’s adoption of AI-powered solutions that are designed to consolidate and enhance advertising strategies. Here are a few of the product announcements from unBoxed 2025 that caught my attention.
- One major development announced at the event is the introduction of Sponsored Products Video, which allows advertisers to seamlessly integrate videos with descriptive text outlining multiple product features into existing campaigns. Tests of this format have delivered a significant increase in click-through rates for ads, once again emphasizing the power of visual content. (Already available in the U.S.)
- Elsewhere, Amazon’s unified Campaign Manager will streamline management, reporting, and optimization by merging sponsored ads and DSP activity into a single platform, providing advertisers with a comprehensive view of performance across channels in real time. This initiative will improve ease of use while also providing robust, real-time insights. (A beta version is currently available to select advertisers, with a global rollout expected later in the year.)
- The AI-fueled Ads Agent simplifies the planning and optimization of campaigns across Amazon’s services, fostering more efficient ad strategies. The automated tool can use an uploaded media plan to create campaign structures, ad groups, and optimized workflows, including audience targeting recommendations. (Available globally to Amazon Marketing Cloud users.)
- The Creative Agent tool uses conversational guidance and Amazon’s data signals and brand intelligence to generate high-quality video and display ads quickly and at no cost, democratizing the process by cutting production costs and enhancing testing capabilities. It also ensures that the content aligns with brand identity, tone, and messaging. (Already available in the U.S.)
These advancements all spotlight the beginning of a crucial shift: AI is transitioning from merely an automation tool into a strategic component of improved advertising efficacy. By streamlining operations and providing deeper insights into consumer behavior, Amazon is trying to set a new standard in digital advertising. And the democratization of AI tools is making more sophisticated marketing strategies accessible to advertisers of all sizes (and budgets).
The overarching narrative is Amazon’s efforts to integrate the strategic, creative, and data-driven elements of advertising, building a future where collaboration, dynamic content, and smart automation will redefine retail media.
As giants like Google and Meta enter the retail media space, the competitive landscape is intensifying, underscoring the urgency and importance of such innovations to win over advertisers seeking to remain competitive in an increasingly complex digital ecosystem.
About the Author
Tyrel Beutler joined Mars United in early 2025 as SVP-Ecommerce to lead the company’s growing ecommerce practice with a focus on catalog, digital shelf content, and ecommerce strategy. He brought over 25 years of retail experience, including more than 18 years dedicated to ecommerce and 13 years at Amazon, where he worked across multiple countries and retail categories before transitioning to the agency side of the industry. Beutler has also held key roles at Ideoclick and Omnicom, and most recently led his own boutique agency, helping brands accelerate growth on Amazon and other ecommerce platforms.
