Amazon Launches Nova AI Agent To Perform Browser Actions

Amazon has added to its roster of AI agents, with the release of a new AI model designed to perform actions within a web browser for users.

Amazon announced the new agent is called Amazon Nova, and it continues the firm’s drive to deliver “generative AI solutions that offer real-world value to our customers, simplifying the lives of shoppers, sellers, advertisers, and enterprises.”

Amazon Nova joins other Amazon roster of other AI agents including Alexa+ (available free for Prime members on certain Echo devices), Amazon Q (to help developers accelerate software development), and Rufus (an expert shopping assistant) – available via Amazon Bedrock (a fully managed service that makes foundation models available through a single API).

Amazon Nova

AI agents are not just enhanced automation tools, but are developed so they can offer dynamic assistance to individuals and organisations with certain tasks.

Amazon describes Nova as a “new generation of state-of-the-art foundation models that deliver frontier intelligence and industry leading price-performance.”

Amazon Nova is available as a research preview for developers, and there is a website that allows users to experiment with the Nova AI models.

“Today, we’re expanding access to Amazon Nova by rolling out nova.amazon.com, a new website for easily exploring our foundation models. We’re also excited to introduce Amazon Nova Act, a new AI model trained to perform actions within a web browser. We’re releasing a research preview of the Amazon Nova Act SDK, which will allow developers to experiment with an early version of the new model.

“Nova.amazon.com puts the power of Amazon’s frontier intelligence into the hands of every developer and tech enthusiast, making it easier than ever to explore the capabilities of Amazon Nova,” said Rohit Prasad, SVP of Amazon Artificial General Intelligence.

“We’ve created this experience to inspire builders, so that they can quickly test their ideas with Nova models, and then implement them at scale in Amazon Bedrock,” said Prasad. “It is an exciting step forward for rapid exploration with AI, including bleeding-edge capabilities such as the Nova Act SDK for building agents that take actions on the web. We’re excited to see what they build and to hear their useful feedback.”

Amazon had first introduced Nova foundation models at re:Invent in December 2024.

Amazon Nova includes three models (Nova Micro, Lite, and Pro) that generate text from different modalities and are fast, capable and cost-effective, and two additional models for generating high-quality images (Nova Canvas) and videos (Nova Reel) from text and image input.

Beginning today, developers also have access to a research preview of the Amazon Nova Act SDK on nova.amazon.com for those in the US. Powered by an early version of a customised Amazon Nova model, this SDK allows developers to build agents that can complete tasks in a web browser.

Rival agents

Amazon Nova joins a growing number AI agents from rival firms offering AI solutions.

For example Amazon backed Anthropic AI released its Computer Use tool in October. The Computer Use tool can interpret what is on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and execute tasks through any software and real-time internet browsing.

Meanwhile OpenAI in January released a similar feature called Operator that will automate tasks such as planning holidays, filling out forms, making restaurant reservations and ordering groceries. Operator is described as as “an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you.”

OpenAI followed up that release in February with another tool called Deep Research, which allows an AI agent to compile complex research reports and analyse questions and topics of the user’s choice.

Google launched an AI agent called ‘AI co-scientist’, designed to act as virtual scientific collaborator to help scientists uncover new discoveries.