Amazon Revamps AI Agent for Online Sellers Roiled by Trade War

Amazon.com Inc. has revamped its artificial intelligence agent for online merchants, an upgrade that could help sellers navigate a holiday shopping season clouded by the trade war between the US and China.

The souped-up Seller Assistant is designed to predict demand and manage inventory — suggesting how many products a merchant should order, when they should offer discounts to help boost sales as the season progresses and when to pull inventory from Amazon facilities to avoid storage fees.

While the first version of the agent mostly responded to merchants’ queries, the upgraded model is designed to be more proactive by ...