Amazon's About You Profile Surprises Shoppers With Personal Assumptions
Amazon's About You feature shows shoppers the personality profile the company has built from their purchases, searches, and Alexa conversations, prompting amusement and privacy concerns as users share unexpectedly personal descriptions.
Amazon has begun showing shoppers the personality profile it has assembled from their activity on its platform, and the results are proving both revealing and unsettling. The feature, called About You, collects details about shopping habits and preferences into a single page that users can browse inside the Amazon Shopping app and mobile web. Shoppers are now sharing screenshots of the descriptions, which range from accurate to unintentionally funny to outright wrong.
Amazon introduced About You in May 2026, but the feature drew widespread attention recently as users posted their profiles on social media. The company says the section is designed to improve shopping recommendations by drawing on purchase history, product reviews, items saved to Lists, and conversations with Alexa for Shopping. A shopper who regularly buys dairy-free milk might see suggestions for other dairy-free products, while someone researching gardening supplies could start receiving recommendations for fertilizer or companion plants.
The trouble is that Amazon can also build assumptions from single purchases or short-lived interests. One Threads user discovered that her profile included the description «flat buttocks.» She wrote that she stumbled upon a page of assumptions Amazon had made about her based on her purchases and was «literally speechless,» though she acknowledged the assessment was not entirely wrong. Another shopper was described as obsessed with minimalist, one-bag travel and partial to Anker charging products, an assessment the shopper confirmed was accurate. A different user found a «one-time specialty cheese exploration» recorded in their profile and responded simply, «guilty.» Others have shared descriptions such as «has no friends» and «cannot keep real plants alive.» One woman reported that Amazon had described her as a «fifty-year-old man.»
The profiles can also surface details that feel far removed from shopping. One user's About You page included a reference to the user's mother having stayed at a hotel with another person, identified by name, and having a negative experience. That kind of entry raises questions about how an algorithm turns routine shopping activity into surprisingly specific personal descriptions. Amazon's conclusions may be incomplete or inaccurate, since buying something for a friend does not necessarily mean the shopper has any personal interest in the product.
Every interaction with Amazon can add another clue. A product search may suggest an interest, while a purchase provides a stronger signal about something the shopper wanted at that moment. Amazon also uses information from its AI shopping assistant. If a customer tells Alexa for Shopping that a cat prefers a particular flavor of food, the company can use that detail to recommend similar products later. According to Amazon, these interactions help make recommendations more relevant. But a single purchase might reflect a temporary need rather than a lasting preference, and an unusual gift for a relative could suddenly be treated as evidence of a personal hobby.
The feature also raises a broader privacy question. Some purchases can indicate sensitive interests involving health, relationships, or other aspects of private life. Even when Amazon draws an incorrect conclusion, users may still want to remove it from their shopping profile. The company makes About You available through its Shopping app and mobile web, giving shoppers a rare look at the assumptions a major retailer has assembled about them. For now, the profiles are prompting both amusement and unease, as shoppers weigh how much a retailer should know and how much control they really have over that information.
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