• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 12, 2025

Amazon's innovative AI-powered streaming ad formats announced Monday do more than connect advertisers with viewers through a pause ad format. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes the content being viewed, creates the ad, determines when and where to serve it, and develops leads.

When viewers pause the content being viewed, an AI-generated relevant message and ad are generated.

The platform dynamically creates the ad and the message to match the images on the screen. The ad copy creates the ads as a natural extension of what viewers are watching at the time.

For example, if someone is viewing a kissing scene and pauses the video, they may be served an ad for Hershey’s kisses.

Real-time retail signals on paused ads will appear in an overlay at the bottom of the advertisement.

If there is a Prime deal or reviews, the information will serve up in the ad to help consumers make informed decisions.

With the TV remote, the consumer can click the “Send to phone” button at the bottom of the ad to have information sent directly to their phone, which seems to be the key to gain further advertising leads.

For travel brands, as an example, an ad might serve up during a paused beach scene in a movie. It also would have the “Send to phone” button attached at the bottom of the ad, which might scroll through several destinations contextually tied to the beach scene. This would allow the consumer to pick the destination they want more information on.

The AI reads the tone of the scene to determine what brand and when to serve the ad, but it’s not clear, however, if and when more than one advertiser in a category opts in to the ad unit, whether the ads will serve on an auction-type basis.

The AI might continue to determine the best ads to serve based on the information viewed in the video content and information on the advertiser’s page.

Pause ads are not new. YouTube began rolling out static pause ads on its connected TV (CTV) app. Others have too -- but few, if any, have these AI-generated capabilities, and breadth and direct link to advertisers on and off a giant marketplace as Amazon does.

Amazon said it has an average monthly ad-supported reach of more than 130 million U.S. customers.

About 88% of Prime Video viewers in the U.S. have shopped on Amazon, so the company believes Amazon Ads are positioned to connect content with customers using Amazon’s addressable signals and first-party audience data.

Amazon’s AI also drives a shoppable ad format tied to the pause ads. It pulls real-time retail information -- such as product details, pricing, deals, reviews, inventory availability, and Prime shipping information -- into the ad directly from Amazon’s storefront.

For brands that don’t sell on Amazon, now there is an expanded suite of interactive call-to-action format that includes location-based messaging buttons for lead generation like “get a quote,” “book an appointment,” and “subscribe now.”  

Amazon is working on the ad unit for its Prime Video services, which will become available across rotational media -- referring to the practice of displaying different versions of an ad within the same ad space over time. The services will become available in third and fourth quarters of this year.

At last year’s upfront, Amazon Ads debuted three new streaming TV ad formats, providing brands with a way to leverage interactivity during all stages of the customer journey.

As a result, brands have seen positive impacts in upper- and lower-funnel campaigns.

The company released data suggesting more than 30% lift in brand awareness, 28% lift in purchase intent, and 36% more orders.