Amazon's Photos app can now identify products in your images and link to their store pages

In brief: Just when you think Amazon couldn't possibly find another way to sell you stuff, the company comes up with something else: shopping links embeded in your photo library images. In essence, the feature lets you identify an item within a photograph in your Amazon Photos library and be directed to its store page.

Former Microsoft executive Panos Panay, now senior vice president of Amazon's Devices and Services division, announced the update to Amazon Photos on Threads.

Panay's post included a clip demonstrating the upgraded features. It starts with a generative AI search using a natural language query – "Max playing with robot dog," in this case. This brings up several images in the user's Amazon Photos library featuring the boy and the device.

The system works by selecting one of the images and then tapping the Lens icon underneath. This scans the photo and brings up Amazon store listings for visually similar items it identifies, such as the robot dog, allowing you to view its customer rating and price. From here, you can go directly to the store page for more information and to purchase an item – if desired.

Amazon says the feature is ideal for anyone who may have seen a product in an image and wanted one themselves, but didn't know what it was called or where to find it.

Amazon's help page doesn't specifically say if turning off the Tag Photos feature will stop the shopping capabilities from working. Amazon's Tag Photos and Tag Specific People tools use image recognition technology to analyze and apply tags to your photos and videos, allowing users to sort and search their photos by people, objects, actions, and scenes – as demonstrated by Panay.

There appear to be contradictory claims on how many people were asking for this new shopping feature, varying from everyone to virtually no one outside of Amazon. The replies to Panay's post include some that are positive, with people noting its usefulness, along with negative ones arguing that this is basically product ads based on a user's photos.