Amazon’s About You page goes viral for what it guesses about shoppers

Amazon’s “About You” page has become a social media hit, for the things it says about shoppers. One user on Threads found that Amazon had concluded she “has flat buttocks”, Business Insider reported on Tuesday. Her post set off a wave of others sharing their own profiles.

About You lists the details Amazon has drawn from each customer’s activity to shape product recommendations. Shoppers can open it, see what Amazon has inferred, and edit or remove each item.

What Amazon thinks it knows

Other profiles shared on Threads say users “cannot keep real plants alive”, “treats cats as biological children” and “has no friends”, The Verge reported. One user found that Amazon says she does not “trust people easily”.

Another shopper told Business Insider that Amazon had decided she has a husband with “skinny legs”. A third profile noted that its owner reads Kindle books on a phone in the shower. On Reddit, one user said Amazon had found they do not know what truffle should taste like.

Not every entry is right. Business Insider staff who checked their own pages found one profile that got an editor’s partner’s name wrong. Most entries are generic, The Verge’s Emma Roth wrote. Hers says she keeps aquariums, drinks coffee and plays video games, all of which she said are accurate.

Where the details come from

Amazon launched About You on 13 May. The profile draws on purchase history, searches, saved lists, product reviews and conversations with the Alexa for Shopping assistant, the company said.

“Understanding your preferences is fundamental to providing you with high-quality, relevant recommendations,” Amazon wrote at the launch.

Shoppers can also ask Alexa for Shopping, “What do you know about me?”

The page sits under Shopping preferences in the account settings, on the app, mobile web and desktop.

In August, Amazon-owned Twitch said it would train Amazon’s AI on streams unless users opt out. In September, Amazon began a pilot letting its advertisers buy ads in ChatGPT. A court also let Perplexity’s AI agent shop on Amazon in August.