On September 10, Amazon announced new features for Shop the Show, its shopping experience linked to Prime Video, which allow users to discover products related to what they are watching and facilitate access to them from the viewing environment itself.

The main novelty is the addition of a new Shop tab inside X-Ray, the Prime Video feature that already offers information about actors, characters, music, or trivia. On compatible devices, the user can access this new section from the remote control and consult products related to the movie, series, or live sporting event they are watching. The purchase is completed later from the Amazon Shopping application.

Amazon has also presented Shop the Scene, a feature supported by Amazon Lens technology that allows identifying items that appear on screen and finding similar products. The tool can recognize, for example, clothing worn by characters or home decor items and display alternatives for purchase. It is currently available in the US for more than 600 titles through the Amazon Shopping applications for iOS and Android.

The expansion is also significant by volume. Shop the Show goes from being available in about 1,300 titles to over 8,000 in the US, including Amazon original productions, licensed content, and live sporting events. The first version of Shop the Show had been launched in 2025 as a second-screen experience, in which the user had to open the Amazon application and search for the content related to what they were watching.

At @tvads we have already talked on previous occasions about how "shoppable TV" could become a natural evolution of connected television, especially for those companies capable of integrating content, audience, technology, and commerce within the same ecosystem.

And here is the interesting part, not only in the new feature but in the type of company that integrates and launches this feature.

Amazon represents probably one of the most obvious cases. Behind Prime Video there is a marketplace with millions of products, recommendation systems, visual recognition technology, payment methods, logistics, and a direct relationship with the consumer. In this context, converting what appears on screen into a possible gateway to commerce does not require building a new model from scratch, but connecting pieces that the company already controls.

This does not necessarily mean that the product shown is exactly the same as the one appearing on the screen. In many cases, the technology identifies the item and, thanks to the enormous offer of Amazon Marketplace, it can display similar products or alternatives that answer that same search.

Something similar can be considered in the case of Walmart, although from a different position. Its entry into CTV is better understood starting from the acquisition of VIZIO, which allowed it to incorporate SmartCast, its operating system for Smart TV, and a user base and advertising inventory on which to develop Walmart Connect. To this is added the recent acquisition of Vibe.co, which provides capabilities for purchasing, activating, and measuring performance-oriented CTV campaigns. The combination allows Walmart to connect increasingly directly its retail business, its advertising capabilities, and connected television consumption.

However, not all major players start from the same position. Google does not necessarily need to replicate Amazon's model, because its strength lies in connecting search, intent, advertising, YouTube, and commerce. Through YouTube it is already developing Shoppable CTV formats that allow displaying products during advertising content and facilitating their purchase, while Google Shopping connects product catalogs and retailers with its advertising ecosystem. To this is added the development of tools such as Universal Cart, which allows integrating products from different retailers into shopping experiences within services such as Search, Gemini, YouTube, or Gmail. In this case, the value is not so much in controlling the product and the transaction within a proprietary marketplace, but in connecting the journey between discovery, intent, advertising, and purchase.

Everything points to shoppable TV evolving precisely in that direction, although not necessarily following a single model. Companies that control content, platforms, technology, data, or commerce will be able to build different connections between what the user is watching and what they can do next. In some cases it will be a direct purchase within the ecosystem itself, and in others a recommendation, a search, or a connection with an external retailer.

The evolution of Prime Video is interesting because it shows how content can also start functioning as an entry point to commerce. And as these capabilities integrate with advertising, audience data, and recognition and recommendation technologies, connected television will have increasingly more possibilities to participate in that journey. For platforms, the value will be not only in gathering audience, but also in everything they can build around that consumption.