Fire TV, Alexa+: Amazon wants to turn every household device into an ad format

The Media Leader France Interview

Amazon Ads’ Charlotte Maines sits down with François Quairel at Cannes Lions to discuss Fire OS’s growth in France, the rationale behind home-screen display ads, and the Alexa+ Agentic Ad features announced during the festival.

Charlotte Maines is VP of devices content and advertising at Amazon Ads, overseeing advertising activities across Fire TV, Alexa, and tablets. The Media Leader France caught up with her on the Croissette.

The Media Leader: Fire TV is an operating system—Fire OS—that users can access in different ways. Can you explain how?

Charlotte Maines: No matter what TV you have, you can plug in a stick. We also have many customers who own two or more Fire TVs. Once you experience it, you love it—and so, when you buy a new TV, you want Fire OS again. But we also offer television sets with Fire OS built in: you turn on the TV, and it’s right there.

TML: How do you explain Fire TV’s double-digit growth in France?

C.M.: It’s a combination of several factors. First, more and more TVs are being sold with built-in Fire OS—from brands like Hisense and Panasonic, among others. When you think about how customers buy TVs, the fact that a growing share of them come with Fire OS obviously drives a lot of that adoption. And then, there’s what I mentioned: once you’ve experienced Fire OS, you love it. You don’t want to switch to a different operating system on another TV. So, as our household penetration grows, customers purchase more Fire TV devices because they want the same experience across all their screens.

TML: You announced a partnership with Canal+ in France. Why choose this partner?

C.M.: The bottom line is that customers need to be able to access the content they want. Of course, we’d love for them to watch Prime Video—but what really matters to us is that if a customer can’t find what they are looking for, they won’t want the platform. We are neutral. That’s at the core of everything. In France, this is particularly important: we know that Canal+ is essential for French customers, so it’s essential for us as well.

TML: You often cite the figure that 44% of Fire TV users don’t know what they want to watch when they turn on their television. How do you turn this moment of indecision into an advertising opportunity?

C.M.: I’m glad you asked—this is truly where the magic of Fire TV lies for advertisers. A customer won’t see an ad on Prime Video if they aren’t watching Prime Video or have an ad-free subscription. Maybe they go to the kitchen during commercial breaks. But with Fire TV, every single user turns on their remote and decides what they want to do. That 44% is not a flaw—it’s customers telling us they arrive with no precise idea of what they’ll watch. On average, they spend six minutes browsing and deciding. What better time to talk to them than when they are focused and receptive? Plus, we’ve sold more than 300m devices worldwide. That’s a lot of engaged eyeballs a brand can reach.

TML: How do you work with brands on the creative experience within this space?

C.M.: We have ad units distributed throughout the entire browsing experience—but we don’t just place an ad in the middle of a content grid while someone is exploring.

What we have developed is our flagship placement, the Feature Rotator: when you open Fire TV, the top part of the screen displays a beautiful visual that brands entirely control. If they want to mobilise a creative team of 20 people to build a premium asset, they can do so. But we also offer AI tools for brands that don’t have those resources.

The image auto-expands, launches a video—which can be the same one used in streaming TV, or a tailored version—and leads to a landing page with a QR code or other information. It’s a full-funnel touchpoint. And because our creative quality standards are very high, it results in a great customer experience. People expect to see ads on TV. A beautiful Delta visual with its planes in the sky is simply part of the experience.

TML: At Cannes Lions, you are announcing Alexa+ Agentic Ads. What sets this format apart from a standard shoppable ad?

C.M.: Let’s start with the context. First announced this week is Alexa for shopping—integrating Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands directly into Alexa+ conversations. Previously, this service was called Rufus. It is now unified under Alexa+, which launched in the US two years ago and has been available in France via early access for about six weeks.

So, our retail ad products are already active there. But Agentic Ads are something else entirely: they allow brands that aren’t traditional e-commerce advertisers to participate in the everyday conversations customers have with Alexa+, such as what to do this weekend with the kids or where to order dinner. It’s one of the industry’s first ad units that allow you to go from discovering an ad to a completed transaction, without ever leaving the conversation.

Take Papa John’s, one of our beta partners in the US: you see an ad on your Echo, Alexa asks if you want to order a pizza, you reply, you have a natural conversation about size and toppings—it’s an LLM, not a rigid script—and you say yes. It’s done. You don’t have to find your phone, look up your login, or navigate an app. It’s a fantastic experience for the customer and a strong position in awareness with direct conversion for the brand.

TML: What kind of feedback are you getting from the initial partner brands?

C.M.: We have literally just launched with Papa John’s restaurants and a concert ticket purchase that completes directly within your Ticketmaster account. What we are measuring is a combination of KPIs: of course, the conversion rate, but also the brand awareness effect.

We’ve known for a long time —at least in the US, where we run ads on Alexa —that engagement rates are very high, even when the customer doesn’t buy immediately. If you’re making pasta and your hands are covered in sauce, you’re not ordering right that second, but we see that customers remember and buy within the next week or two. We’ll be working with our partners on all these indicators to refine the model.

TML: Do you have a roadmap for deploying Agentic Ads in Europe, including France?

C.M.: Right now, the product is available in the US. But our approach to device advertising is to invest robustly in the product roadmap so that advertising follows as soon as Alexa+ is available in a market. Alexa+ launched in France six weeks ago in early access—which means we will follow suit very quickly.