Amazon: From Cannes Lions to Scaling Creative Operations
How Amazon's creative teams built AI systems that transform impossible problems into breakthrough campaigns—from analyzing 500 million reviews to winning Cannes Lions.
Problem
"If you take how long it takes to go through, read a review, and then if you take how long it takes to score it, and then we went through this tool that we built with the fine folks at Alephic, went through 300 million of them. That's kind of equivalent to 2.5 million work hours, which is, when you break it down, is like, four times the size of our department."
— Mike Houston, Executive Creative Director, Amazon
Amazon's creative teams faced a fundamental tension of how to scale an ever increasing appetite for creative work with their global in-house agency, XCM. The daunting challenge was creative velocity needed to increase to support a multi-trillion dollar company while keeping headcount flat and the quality bar was being raised at the same time.
Alephic Solution
By partnering directly with the talented creative team at Amazon, Alephic architected custom AI systems that integrated directly into Amazon's creative production pipeline. The solutions focused on taking Amazon's very best talent and making them 10x more productive. Whether it is the internal AI copywriting solution, CopySAW, that can scale incredible breakthrough creative work across all ad formats or StarSearch that can comb through billions of reviews to find the perfect one to be used across any advertising format. Amazon's creative teams are building systems that are built at the intersection of AI, creativity and incredible human expertise.
Impact
"AI continues to create things that would have been impossible. Like, that was a story that we couldn't tell at scale before, and now we can. And there will be more to come from that. We just can't share it yet. But we're very excited about the review thing."
— Mike Houston, Executive Creative Director, Amazon
For an organization producing hundreds of thousands of creative assets annually, even a 15% efficiency gain represents tens of millions in annual creative production savings. Alephic's approach enabled Amazon to scale creative output that led to breakthrough creative and allowing Amazon to grab more market share across their business units.
"Sometimes it feels like working with Alephic is getting an opportunity work with an Ironman suit on."
— Mike Houston, Executive Creative Director, Amazon
The StarSearch system enabled Amazon to surface compelling reviews that became 10 different campaign spots featuring Adam Driver. The initiative launched successfully for Black Friday ran across paid social, premium video, and owned channels. In June 2025 the campaign won a Cannes Lions.
"The result? A campaign that led to Amazon's biggest holiday sales ever. And the Internet gave a standing ovation with over 1 billion impressions, 330 million earned impressions, and a 99% positive social sentiment. All because we let AI do what it does best, not replacing human creativity, but supercharging our creative potential."
— XCM StarSearch Case Study
"What these reviews have shown us is that some of our best writers are our customers, and we love how this campaign brings them into the spotlight. I mean, if watching an Oscar-nominated actor deliver a passionate monologue about a banana slicer doesn't make you laugh, I don't know what will."
— Jo Shoesmith, Global Chief Creative Officer, Amazon
Watch: My Friend Frankenstein - Getting Mad Sciencey With Your Creative Department
Mike Houston, Executive Creative Director at Amazon, shares how Amazon's creative teams partnered with Alephic to build AI systems that transform creative operations at BRXND NYC 2025.
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