Why This Matters to Distributors: Amazon Business is expanding its purchasing services with tools that help customers measure savings, monitor buying policies and manage orders. The additions put more emphasis on the reporting, purchasing controls and account support distributors provide alongside products.
Amazon Business has introduced a procurement reporting tool and expanded its artificial intelligence assistant, giving business customers additional ways to measure purchasing performance, analyze spending and manage orders.
The reporting tool, Value Intelligence, combines cost savings, operational efficiency, and compliance with purchasing policies in a single view. The enhanced Amazon Business assistant lets customers ask questions about their purchasing activity, check orders and approvals, identify potential savings, and allocate payments.
Amazon announced the assistant enhancements at its Reshape 2026 event in Nashville. The expanded assistant is available to all U.S. Amazon Business customers through their account pages, while Value Intelligence is available to eligible customers through Amazon Business Analytics.
The additions extend Amazon Business’s services beyond placing and fulfilling orders, helping procurement teams oversee spending and document the results of their purchasing decisions.
“Procurement has always been about more than price, but price is what gets reported because it’s the easiest thing to measure,” said Shelley Salomon, worldwide vice president of Amazon Business.
Value Intelligence calculates savings using customers’ order data at the individual item level, comparing purchase prices with what Amazon described as a validated reference price. It also quantifies operational efficiency based on account activity and reports compliance with purchasing policies.
Amazon said the figures include methods and sources, draw on independent third-party research, and have inputs customers can review and adjust. The announcement did not identify the research providers, explain how reference prices are established or specify which customers qualify.
The tool is intended to consolidate information procurement teams otherwise would have to assemble pricing programs, discounts, and purchasing benefits. It also gives those teams a way to report work beyond negotiating prices, including directing purchases through approved channels, and reducing administrative tasks.
The expanded assistant provides a conversational way to access account information and handle purchasing tasks. Customers can check tracking details and expected delivery dates, identify orders awaiting approval and see when approval notifications were sent.
For spending analysis, the assistant draws on more than 60 reporting fields and up to two years of account history, Amazon said. That information covers orders, shipments, payments, refunds, savings, products, and sellers.
A customer could ask how much the organization spent on information technology supplies the previous month, then follow up with a question about purchases from small or diverse sellers. A facilities manager responsible for several locations could review recent orders and identify those still awaiting approval without starting a separate conversation.
“Every hour a procurement team spends chasing approvals or manually reconciling invoices is an hour they’re not spending on the work that moves their organization forward,” Salomon said.
Amazon said the assistant follows each organization’s existing approval requirements, spending limits, and purchasing policies. Transactions that require authorization still must receive it, and users give final approval before actions proceed.
The assistant also follows account access permissions. Employees can retrieve only the payment information and reports available to their assigned roles.
For distributors, the announcements underscore the growing role of purchasing support in competition for business accounts. By bringing order assistance, spending analysis and performance reporting into its platform, Amazon Business is giving procurement teams additional tools to manage purchases and evaluate the value of using its services.
Distributors looking to evaluate AI tools and their applications can attend Distribution Strategy Group’s Applied AI for Distributors, June 22-24, 2027, at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel outside Chicago. The conference will bring together distribution leaders, technology providers and industry practitioners to discuss implementation and measurable results. Register here
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