BENGALURU, March 26 -- As digital advertisement budgets become more contested, Amazon is using its 10-year anniversary in India to push a pitch focused on measurable outcomes across platforms. "The concept of a dominant channel has disappeared," Girish Prabhu, vice president and head of Amazon Ads India, told Mint in an interview, pointing to how consumer attention is now split across streaming, social, short-form video, and commerce platforms. For Amazon Ads, this shift has transformed a marketplace-focused product into a broader ecosystem across shopping, streaming, and third-party publishers-helping it emerge as a third major player after Google and Meta. Amazon ranked third with a monthly active user base of 325 million in December 2025, behind Google at 501 million and Facebook (Meta) at 447 million, according to a Ficci-EY report released Tuesday. Over the past decade, Amazon Ads has linked advertising more closely to shopping behaviour, a strategy it is now doubling down on amid intensifying competition. On Wednesday, the firm rolled out two agentic AI tools: Creative Agent, to help advertisers easily create professional-quality ads, and Ads Agent, to assist sellers in planning, launching, and optimising campaigns. India's ad market continues to grow alongside the media and entertainment sector, with revenues rising 13.5% to about Rs.1.5 trillion in 2025. Digital accounted for nearly two-thirds of total ad spend, the report said. E-commerce and point-of-sale advertising grew 50% to Rs.220 billion, capturing 23% of digital ad spend, as marketers invested in platforms such as Amazon, paying a premium for proximity to buying decisions, it added. Amazon Ads began by helping sellers get discovered on its platform. "When we started the business, our idea was very simple. There's millions of products. how do you help get the right product for the right customers at all times on a small screen, like a mobile phone?" Prabhu said. Since then, the business has grown to brands outside Amazon, including automotive and financial services. Central to this is a "full-funnel" approach linking awareness and purchase within a single system. It combines high-intent shopping signals with reach across Prime Video, Amazon MX Player, and external publishers, and promotes performance and brand advertising as a unified growth strategy, according to Prabhu. India has become a testing ground for mobile-first formats. Amazon MX Player, its free ad-supported streaming service, has around 250 million monthly users. Prabhu said the aim is to convert fragmented content consumption into a structured entertainment environment. These formats, where video, product discovery, and purchase are combined, have gained traction locally. Other approaches, such as live commerce, are being used more selectively, particularly for product launches and categories where demonstrations matter, he said. Amazon is also experimenting with integrating brands into content rather than relying solely on traditional ad breaks. This is part of a broader attempt to make advertising less interruptive and more embedded in the user experience. "We are trying to make the entertainment experience better by integrating it together rather than this feeling like an offsite exercise," he said. Many of these experiments are shaped by local behaviour, including mobile-heavy usage and vertical video viewing, which may not directly translate to other markets but are informing Amazon's global product development, Prabhu added. Competition for ad budgets is intensifying. Alongside Google and Meta, telecom- and retail-led platforms such as Reliance Jio are building their own offerings. "It's a highly competitive environment. Things are getting so much more complex. Everyone wants marketers' budgets," Prabhu said....