Amazon has expanded its Alexa for Shopping assistant so it can verify whether an email, text message or phone call claiming to be from the company is genuine, in an effort to counter impersonation scams. Users can ask the AI assistant about a suspicious message and it will check it against Amazon's own records of communications it has sent, while also analysing the content, formatting and sender, only confirming authenticity when it is "completely certain".

If the assistant cannot confirm a message is genuine, it advises customers to check their orders directly in the Amazon app and to contact official support rather than respond to the message. This builds on an earlier tool letting users forward suspect messages to a dedicated "verify@amazon.com" address, and follows other recent additions to Alexa for Shopping, including an "Update Me When" feature for tracking new product releases.