Amazon announced on 23 September a selling partner plugin for its own Quick assistant and Anthropic’s Claude in beta, alongside a free 12-month Quick Plus subscription for sellers.
Key points
- The Claude plugin is in beta for Amazon’s US stores, with international expansion to follow.
- Sellers can bring listings, inventory and sales data into an assistant, then approve actions on their accounts.
- Independent sellers account for more than 60% of Amazon’s worldwide unit sales and generated $46.8 billion in second-quarter seller fees.
Claude beta brings seller accounts outside Seller Central
The beta covers Amazon’s US stores, with an international rollout to follow, GeekWire reported. The plugin lets merchants work in Claude or Quick rather than open Seller Central to check inventory, change prices and update listings.
Listings, inventory levels, sales analytics and performance measures are available to the connected assistant. Sellers choose the categories of data it can access and approve each action before it is carried out. Amazon says it does not see other business data held in a seller’s assistant.
Amazon says a seller can connect Claude in about 60 seconds without writing code. The company also says about 90% of sellers already use outside AI tools for some operational work. The plugin gives those merchants a way to use an external assistant with their Amazon account.
Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon’s vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Experience, described a goal of letting merchants work without visiting Seller Central. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic, whose Claude models already power Seller Assistant inside the seller portal. Westmoreland said the plugin was designed to accommodate further integrations.
Seller Assistant gains memory and continuous workflows
Amazon launched Seller Assistant in 2023 as a tool for answering merchants’ questions and helping with routine work. Its latest version, the company says, retains information about a seller’s pricing patterns, inventory cycles and growth goals across Seller Central, Quick and Claude. It uses that history to tailor recommendations as a merchant moves between the tools.
The company says Seller Assistant’s capabilities have reached more than 90% of its selling partners worldwide in their native languages. It reports hundreds of thousands of active users and says sellers accept its recommendations more than 90% of the time. Those figures concern Amazon’s existing assistant, rather than use of the new Claude plugin.
New workflows can monitor a seller’s business while the merchant is away from Seller Central. Sellers set the tasks and guardrails in plain language. Amazon says the workflows can handle recurring work such as monitoring inventory and pricing, while actions remain subject to seller approval and carry audit trails.
Amazon has also added a visual workspace to Seller Assistant. The company says sellers can use their live data to compare pricing approaches and examine advertising campaigns, then ask follow-up questions as the workspace changes. The tools were announced at Accelerate, Amazon’s seller conference in Seattle.
Seller fees brought Amazon $46.8 billion
Independent merchants supply more than 60% of the units sold on Amazon worldwide. Fees charged to those sellers brought Amazon $46.8 billion in the second quarter, more than its AWS revenue for the period, GeekWire reported. The scale of that business puts the new route into seller accounts alongside an established source of revenue for Amazon.
Amazon’s advertising business, which includes sponsored product listings purchased by sellers, brought in $19.8 billion in the quarter, up 26% from a year earlier. The plugin’s account data includes sales analytics and performance measures, while the updated Seller Assistant offers sellers a way to examine campaign performance.
Amazon is offering every primary selling account holder worldwide a free 12-month Quick Plus subscription, covering two additional co-workers at no cost. The offer is available through 31 December 2026.
