Amazon Updates Product Review System with Machine Learning Algorithms

In its recent efforts to improve customer experience, Amazon announced that it would release a new platform which uses machine learning algorithms to pick the product reviews that are most useful to customers.

The update will be rolled out in the U.S. first, but other countries may soon follow the trend. Amazon developers explained that the new platform would intuitively choose the most helpful reviews based on the data provided by the users themselves.

“The system will learn what reviews are most helpful to customers…and it improves over time,”

said Amazon’s spokesperson Julie Law in a recent statement.

The change, which was slated for Friday, will not be obvious to common users because the changes the new platform will make would be gradual. Steadily, the star ratings and top product reviews would automatically adjust to fit customers’ best interests, the company announced.

Among the parameters that the new algorithms would take into account are reviews from verified users, newer reviews, and other users’ vote cast on the most helpful reviews. Amazon promised that the 5-star rating system will no longer be an average of all reviews. Instead it would depict a more accurate picture of the product as seen and experienced by buyers.

The online retailer heavily relied on customer reviews to sell its products for more than two decades. Purchasers usually take a decision to buy a product over another by looking at the five-star rating and top reviews. Reviews are extremely helpful especially during online shopping experience where you cannot test or touch the product.

So, a major update of the system was targeted at making the site more reliable to its clients and even attracting brick and mortar shoppers. So, any tweak brought to the system was carefully planned and analyzed.

In April, Amazon filed a series of lawsuits against several websites that provided fake reviews of its products. Ms. Law disclosed that the e-commerce giant’s staffers scrutinized the new platform “very closely” before rolling it out. But she declined to provide more details about the time required to develop the update in the review system.

Ms. Law added that the new system would convince customers that the description on the site “reflects the current product experience.” The company also said that the enhanced reviews may help customers know before the site updates occur that producers had addressed some technical flaws, made small tweaks to the products, or even renamed them.

Image Source: CNN Money

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Richard Carlisle

Richard is a product of the 90s and a serious fan of the Star Wars series. He graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology; therefore, he has a great understanding of the relationship between physical activity and mental health. Although he has a full- time job in a clinic, he enjoys covering news related to health and the United States.