Amazon Ads at 10: how AI is finally making digital advertising simpler for Indian brands

Introduction

Here is an uncomfortable truth about digital advertising: it promised to make marketing easier, but somewhere along the way, it became one of the most complex jobs in business. Multiple platforms, fragmented tools, siloed data, and campaign structures that take weeks to build — sound familiar? As Amazon Ads marks its tenth year in India, it is not just celebrating a milestone. It is launching what could be its most ambitious bet yet: using artificial intelligence to untangle the very complexity it helped create. For Indian brands — from large enterprises to first-time SMB advertisers — this shift deserves serious attention.

The big announcement

At Connected Worlds, Amazon Ads' first-ever flagship event in India, the company unveiled a suite of AI-powered tools and platform updates designed to simplify the full advertising journey — from creative production to campaign optimisation.

The centrepiece launches include Creative Agent, an AI tool that helps advertisers build professional-quality video and display ads using natural language prompts, and Ads Agent, an AI assistant that automates campaign planning, audience targeting, and performance optimisation.

Alongside these, Amazon Ads introduced a unified Campaign Manager that brings Amazon DSP and its advertising console under one roof, a creator marketing programme connecting brands with over five lakh influencers, and expanded streaming ad formats across Prime Video and Amazon MX Player.

Girish Prabhu, Vice President and Head of Amazon Ads India, framed the vision clearly: helping Indian brands reach the right customer, at the right moment, across the entire purchase journey.

Ten years in, Amazon Ads is no longer just a retail media channel. It is positioning itself as a full-funnel advertising ecosystem.

What this means for your brand

The implications of these launches go well beyond Amazon's own platform. They reflect a broader shift in how AI is being applied to marketing — not just to optimise what already exists, but to lower the barrier to entry for brands that have historically been locked out of premium advertising.

Consider Creative Agent. For a small business in Jaipur or a D2C brand in Bengaluru, hiring a creative agency, briefing a design team, and producing a video ad campaign is often financially and logistically out of reach. Creative Agent compresses that entire process into hours, at no additional cost. That is not a minor improvement — it is a structural change in who gets to compete.

Ads Agent addresses a different but equally real problem: the technical complexity of campaign management. Setting up audience segments, adjusting pacing, pulling analytics — these tasks require expertise that many smaller teams simply do not have. By enabling natural language inputs, Amazon is making campaign management accessible to advertisers who do not have a dedicated performance marketing specialist on staff.

For larger brands and agencies, the opportunity is different. Creative Agent functions as a rapid ideation and production layer, not a replacement for strategic thinking. Agencies that adopt it early will be able to serve more clients faster, with lower production overheads.

The contrarian note: AI-generated creatives carry a homogenisation risk. If every brand on Amazon is using the same tool to generate ads, differentiation becomes harder. The brands that win will be the ones that use AI as a starting point, not a finishing line.

The brands.in perspective

Amazon Ads has done something strategically smart with these launches: it has reframed the conversation. For years, the narrative around Amazon Ads was about targeting precision and first-party data. Both are genuinely valuable, but they speak to a sophisticated advertiser who already knows what they are doing. Creative Agent and Ads Agent speak to a different, much larger audience — the brand that wants to advertise well but does not know where to start, or does not have the team to execute at scale.

The unified Campaign Manager is arguably the most underrated announcement. Consolidating DSP and the advertising console into one platform sounds like a housekeeping update. In practice, it removes one of the most persistent friction points for mid-sized advertisers who have been managing two separate systems with two separate reporting structures.

India's advertising market is growing fast, but it is still leaving millions of SMBs behind. If Amazon's AI tools genuinely deliver on their promise, that gap could narrow significantly by 2027.

Key takeaways for marketers

• Amazon Ads turns 10 in India and launches its first flagship event, Connected Worlds.
• Creative Agent allows any brand to produce professional video and display ads in hours, at no extra cost.
• Ads Agent automates campaign planning and optimisation using simple natural language inputs.
• A unified Campaign Manager consolidates Amazon DSP and advertising console into one platform.
• Over five lakh creators are now accessible through Amazon's unified influencer marketing programme.
• Amazon Now is expanding to more Indian cities in 2026, creating a new quick-commerce retail media surface for brands.

Faq section

Q1: What is Amazon Ads Creative Agent and who can use it? Creative Agent is an AI tool that helps advertisers build video and display ads using natural language prompts. It is available to brands of all sizes, requires no design expertise, and comes at no additional cost, making it especially useful for SMBs and first-time advertisers.

Q2: How is Amazon Ads different from other digital advertising platforms in India? Amazon Ads combines first-party shopping and browsing data with streaming content across Prime Video and Amazon MX Player. This allows advertisers to connect brand awareness to actual purchase behaviour within a single ecosystem, which most standalone ad platforms cannot offer.

Q3: Is Creative Agent replacing advertising agencies? No. Creative Agent is a tool that both brands and agencies can use to speed up creative production. It is designed to handle execution, not strategy. Agencies that use it effectively can produce more work faster, rather than being replaced by it.

Closing

AI is reshaping advertising faster than most marketing playbooks can keep up with. The real question is not whether your brand should be using these tools — it is whether you will be early enough to build an advantage before everyone else catches up. What is the biggest bottleneck in your current advertising workflow? Tell us in the comments below. Follow brands.in for daily brand intelligence, marketing insights, and advertising news from across India's most dynamic market.