Amazon brands are facing a more complicated competitive environment as marketplace visibility increasingly depends on retail execution, content quality, advertising and the ability to surface products through AI-driven shopping experiences.

Podean, in partnership with Amazon data platform Jungle Scout, has launched The Marketplace Index™ 2026, its annual benchmark of Amazon brand performance. The fourth edition evaluates more than 3,500 brands across six major Amazon markets: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, the UK and the US.

The report adds AI Readiness as a new scoring pillar alongside Retail, Content, Customer and Media, reflecting a shift in how consumers discover products on marketplaces.

The introduction of AI Readiness is arguably the most significant change in this year's index. Amazon's shopping ecosystem is increasingly being shaped by AI-powered discovery and shopping assistants, creating a new layer of competition beyond traditional search rankings and sponsored placements.

The Marketplace Index attempts to measure that shift alongside more established components of Amazon performance. Jungle Scout supplies Amazon marketplace data covering categories, brands, products and keywords, while Podean uses those signals to benchmark performance across markets and categories.

For enterprise ecommerce and marketplace teams, that creates a framework for comparing performance beyond headline sales figures. A brand may have strong retail execution but weak advertising coverage, for example, or compelling product content without the infrastructure needed to perform well in emerging AI-assisted discovery.

The Australian findings illustrate the differences.

Beauty and Health and Household & Personal Care emerged as the strongest-performing category groups in the Australian market, with Skin Care, Body Care, Hair Care and Makeup among the leading categories. Grocery categories such as Pantry Staples and Wine, Beer & Spirits scored lower.

Content was Australia's strongest area of improvement, with scores increasing by 10 percentage points year over year. Podean attributes the improvement to stronger product titles, richer image stacks and greater adoption of Amazon A+ Content. Yet significant gaps remain: about one in five brands has no active Amazon Brand Store.

Advertising remains a more difficult problem. The report identifies Media as Australia's weakest scoring pillar, with limited ad placements and intense category competition contributing to the gap.

The distinction between brand and category search is particularly relevant. While 84% of Australian brands in the index run sponsored advertising against brand terms, only 56% target category keywords. That leaves a potentially important discovery gap for shoppers who have not yet decided which brand to buy.

AI Readiness presents another emerging weakness. The report says product descriptions frequently fail to answer shopper questions, while almost nine in 10 brands do not use Amazon's Premium Q&A module.

That points to a broader change in ecommerce optimization. As AI systems increasingly interpret product information and answer consumer questions, marketplace content may need to become more structured, comprehensive and useful rather than simply optimized for conventional keyword searches.

For marketers, this moves Amazon optimization closer to the broader AEO and GEO conversation. Product descriptions, structured information, customer questions and contextual relevance can increasingly influence whether products are surfaced by both marketplace search and AI-mediated discovery.

The index's six-market scope also highlights another strategic issue: there is no single global Amazon playbook. Performance standards vary by market, category and competitive intensity. Brands expanding internationally therefore need localized marketplace strategies while maintaining consistent measurement across regions.

Market Landscape

Amazon remains a central battleground for brands competing across ecommerce, retail media and digital discovery. The marketplace is simultaneously becoming a media channel, a product-information environment and an increasingly important source of first-party shopping signals.

The Marketplace Index's five-pillar framework reflects that convergence. Retail establishes marketplace fundamentals; Content affects product presentation and discoverability; Customer measures consumer-facing performance; Media captures advertising activity; and AI Readiness introduces the emerging layer of machine-mediated product discovery.

The partnership between Podean and Jungle Scout is significant because it combines marketplace strategy expertise with Amazon-focused data. For brands, the practical value lies less in the ranking itself than in identifying specific gaps relative to category competitors.

Strategic Outlook

AI-powered shopping could make product information quality an increasingly important competitive variable on Amazon. Brands that treat AI readiness as an extension of ecommerce content strategy may have an advantage as shopping assistants become more capable of comparing products and answering purchase questions.

The bigger opportunity is integration. Retail, content, media and AI optimization are often managed by separate teams, but marketplace performance increasingly depends on how those functions work together.

For enterprise MarTech and ecommerce teams, that means Amazon strategy is moving toward a more unified operating model in which marketplace analytics, retail media, content management and AI visibility are measured together.

Top Insights

• Podean's Marketplace Index adds AI Readiness to Amazon benchmarking, reflecting the growing importance of AI-mediated product discovery for ecommerce brands.
• Australian brands improved content performance by 10 percentage points, but weak Brand Store and A+ adoption indicate substantial optimization opportunities.
• Only 56% of Australian brands target category keywords with sponsored ads, potentially limiting discovery among shoppers without established brand preferences.
• Nearly nine in 10 Australian brands do not use Amazon Premium Q&A, highlighting a significant opportunity as AI-assisted shopping becomes more conversational.
• The six-market benchmark shows Amazon performance varies substantially by geography, making localized marketplace strategies increasingly important for global ecommerce teams.

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