The camera in your pocket just turned into a hack for finding Amazon deals

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AI assistants are quickly gaining the ability to interact with the world around you through a smartphone's camera – and Amazon has just turned that concept into a hack for finding deals on similar products. The Amazon app is gaining the ability to use the camera to find product matches to the objects around you in real time.

Amazon's mobile app already had the ability to use the camera to search for products that look similar, but the retail giant's latest update enables shoppers to use the camera's live view to look for similar products on Amazon.

When users open Live Lens , the Amazon app will immediately start searching for products placed in that camera view. The AI-powered tool will bring up a carousel of matching products that can be added to the cart with a quick tap on a plus icon. The feature will also integrate questions and summaries about those products from Amazon's AI assistant, Rufus.

Unlike earlier Amazon Lens features, Live Lens works without snapping a photo to upload and searches for products right there on the live camera view.

Amazon says the feature is built on a "lightweight computer vision object detection" that runs on the device, not on the cloud. The retailer says that the tool helps identify products automatically with minimal input.

The tool can use the camera's view to locate similar or, in some cases, exact product matches from billions of products on Amazon, the company says.

The feature has already begun rolling out to some users in the US, and the feature will continue a slow rollout to the US "over the coming months."

Amazon Lens is accessed by tapping the camera icon in the search bar on the Amazon app . Live Lens joins the app's existing ability to upload a photo to search, to snap a photo in the app, or to scan a barcode. Amazon Lens also has a widget for iOS users, which serves as a shortcut to open the tool from an iPhone lock screen.

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