Amazon Assistant is closing: what do I do now? – The Big Tech Question

The Amazon Assistant browser add-on has been a great way to add items to your Amazon Wishlist. I’ve always felt that Amazon’s Wishlist features were the best available but with the Amazon Assistant closing, not anymore. In this article I’ll explain what’s happening, how it affects you and what your next steps should be.

Amazon Assistant closing: what’s happening and why?

If you launch Amazon Assistant in your browser you’ll find yourself greeted with the following message:

At Amazon, we are always experimenting and evaluating the potential of our products. We have made the decision to discontinue Amazon Assistant on 28 March 2023. From that date you will no longer be able to use Amazon Assistant. You will still have access on Amazon to Lists you have already created with Amazon Assistant and the products you previously added from other sites will remain. We apologise for any inconvenience this decision may cause you.

So, the Assistant browser add-on will stop working, but there’s no specific reason given as to why. It’s likely that it’s due to low usage or slim benefit to Amazon. Although known for having privacy concerns, Assistant does more than just allow you to add to your Wishlist. It also provides recommendations, shows promotions, and more. If all of this is not getting the attention that Amazon expected, this may be behind the decision.

Amazon Assistant: what will change?

Assuming Amazon doesn’t provide another feature to replace it, the big change will be the inability to add products from non-Amazon sites to your Wishlist, one of the big selling points of using Amazon’s list over any others.

Amazon removed the ability to manually add products from within your Wishlist, so that only leaves you with the “Add to List” button found on Amazon product pages. Therefore, the Amazon Wishlist will only be useful for bookmarking Amazon’s own products.

Amazon Assistant: what are the alternatives?

There are several alternative wishlists available. Read my article on why wishlists are a good idea, which also has alternatives that you can try. What you’re looking for in a solution is a very personal choice – a poor interface immediately puts me off, for example. Look for available browser extensions as well as how well the software grabs the products information from a URL.

I’m going to review several wishlists in an upcoming article, so look out for that in the coming weeks.

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