Amazon Ads Agent, DVA+ & What Changed at unBoxed 2026
Amazon Ads made a long list of announcements at unBoxed 2026.
But one idea seems to connect many of them:
Amazon wants AI to do more of the work of advertising.
In this special edition of Commerce Media Minute, Shaun looks at Amazon Ads Agent, DVA+, Full-Funnel Campaigns and Review Requests—and what these tools could mean for how marketers actually spend their time.
Amazon Ads Agent
Amazon introduced Amazon Ads Agent, the new name for its unified advertising platform, now powered by agentic AI.
The platform brings together what advertisers previously knew as Amazon DSP and Ads Console, connecting sponsored ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns and Display, Video and Audio campaigns in one experience.
AI sits at the center of the experience.
Advertisers can use natural language to plan media, build audiences, analyze performance, receive recommendations and take actions across campaigns.
Amazon says advertisers using natural language to apply targeting recommendations in earlier versions of the experience reached more than 25% additional unique customers while lowering cost per impression by more than 10% on average. Those are Amazon-reported results and individual outcomes may vary.
The interesting shift is from AI simply helping marketers understand advertising toward AI increasingly helping them operate it.
DVA+
DVA+—Display, Video and Audio—takes simplification further.
Instead of separately building campaigns across streaming TV, online video, display and audio, advertisers can use one campaign, objective and budget across those media types.
Amazon describes the philosophy as essentially starting with AI and adding control when needed. Experienced advertisers can still access advanced settings for targeting, deals, delivery and other programmatic controls.
Amazon says DVA+ is informed by first-party shopping, streaming and entertainment signals from more than 300 million authenticated users.
The bigger idea isn’t simply combining formats.
It’s reducing the work between a marketer defining an objective and getting media running.
Full-Funnel Campaigns
Amazon also announced that Full-Funnel Campaigns is available in open beta in the United States.
Advertisers provide inputs including products, budget and campaign objectives. Amazon’s AI can then select formats, allocate budget across the funnel, use first-party shopping signals and continually optimize toward sales growth.
Amazon reports that beta advertisers saw 67% higher long-term return on ad spend compared with the same formats configured independently and 29% lower cost per purchase for new-to-brand customers. Amazon notes that these are early beta results based on its own internal data and individual results may vary.
That points toward a different way of interacting with advertising software:
Instead of starting with channels and campaign mechanics, marketers increasingly may be able to start with a business goal.
Review Requests
One of the more unexpected announcements was Review Requests.
The new ad solution allows advertisers to reach verified customers who recently purchased a product and invite them to submit a rating or written review.
The format is designed for eligible products with fewer than 1,000 ratings and reviews. Amazon says early testing produced approximately three times as many ratings and reviews per week compared with before the test.
It raises interesting questions about the evolving relationship between advertising, commerce and the signals shoppers use to evaluate products.
What connects everything?
Step back from the individual products and Amazon appears to be targeting something very specific:
Work.
Audience building.
Campaign setup.
Media selection.
Creative development.
Analysis.
Optimization.
Amazon is increasingly asking how much of that execution AI can handle.
And that leads to a bigger question for agencies and marketing teams:
If AI handles more of the execution, what becomes more valuable for the marketer?
Judgment?
Customer understanding?
Strategy?
Knowing which questions to ask?
Knowing which business outcome actually matters?
Automation doesn’t eliminate strategy.
It may make good strategy even more important.
The takeaway
If there’s one thing to remember this week, it’s this:
Amazon isn’t just adding AI features to advertising. It’s redesigning the advertising workflow around AI—and that could change what marketers actually spend their time doing.
Sources & Further Reading
Amazon Ads — Amazon Ads Agent
Introducing Amazon Ads Agent, your AI-powered ad platform
Amazon Ads — unBoxed 2026 recap
The biggest takeaways from unBoxed 2026
Amazon Ads — DVA+
Reach new audiences using DVA+
Amazon Ads — Full-Funnel Campaigns
Grow total sales with Full-Funnel Campaigns
Amazon Ads — Review Requests
Accelerate authentic reviews with Review Requests
Amazon Ads — unBoxed 2026 event
unBoxed 2026