Amazon is once again reshaping the way people shop online. The e-commerce giant has unveiled a new feature called Lens Live, designed to transform your smartphone camera into a direct gateway to its vast marketplace. With this innovation, everyday surroundings can be turned into a virtual shopping catalogue.

Currently available exclusively on the Amazon Shopping app for iOS, Lens Live is expected to roll out to more platforms in the coming weeks. The concept is simple but powerful: point your camera at an item, and Amazon’s artificial intelligence instantly identifies it. From there, the system sifts through billions of listings to present product matches in real time.

Unlike static search results, Lens Live makes the browsing experience interactive. Users see a swipeable carousel of suggestions, complete with add-to-cart and wishlist buttons, turning discovery into immediate action. It’s Amazon’s direct response to Google’s Gemini Live, which also leverages AI to scan environments. The difference, however, lies in Amazon’s commerce-first approach — nearly every identified object comes with a bold option to buy.

But Lens Live is more than just recognition software. It integrates seamlessly with Rufus, Amazon’s in-house AI shopping assistant. Rufus is designed to simplify product research by summarizing descriptions, highlighting key details, and answering tailored queries. Whether you need to know if a lamp supports dimming or if a chair will fit in a compact space, Rufus provides answers on the spot. This added intelligence reduces the friction of decision-making in Amazon’s otherwise overwhelming product ecosystem.

Lens Live also builds on Amazon’s earlier visual search tools. Customers have long been able to upload photos, scan barcodes, or snap quick pictures to locate products. What makes this new feature different is its continuous, live functionality. Instead of capturing one image at a time, shoppers can pan their camera across a room and watch as recommendations appear in a steady stream.

The launch underscores Amazon’s ongoing push to merge AI with everyday shopping habits, making the process faster, more seamless, and perhaps more irresistible. By eliminating the need to type product names or search keywords, Lens Live brings shopping into a new realm of spontaneity. It’s impulse buying elevated by technology, and for many, it may prove difficult to resist.

For now, Amazon is keeping its expansion timeline under wraps, only stating that the feature will “bring the feature to more customers in the coming weeks.” Still, given the global reach of Amazon’s marketplace and the convenience of camera-based shopping, Lens Live has the potential to become one of the company’s most influential features yet.

In an era where online shopping continues to evolve, Lens Live represents the next step: making the world around you instantly shoppable, one camera scan at a time.