Amazon is the latest big company to throw itself into the visual content recognition market. Armed with the late 2015 acquisition of Orbeus, makers of ReKognition and Photo Time, it just launched its own APi service, also called ReKognition. After giants like Google, IBM, Microsoft, and smaller companies like Imagga or Clarifai, it is the latest, and maybe most formidable, offering in this space
At first glance, nothing really new here, if compared to other similar services. In fact, it seems that Amazon is done little to enhance the services already offered by Orbeus. Everything from content recognition ( including dog breeds) to face recognition were already available. But like anything in the deep learning space, most of the advantages can really only be seen under the hood. Amazon has a huge volume of classified data which can be used to better train its algorithm and has most certainly use some of it.
What really puts Amazon as a challenging competitor is its integration with its cloud service. Already above 1 Million active users, it can certainly count on converting a substantial amount to it visual recognition services, allured by the ease of management. On the flip side, it might be such of appeal for those using other cloud services or simply using other solution. In fact, much like Google or Microsoft, Amazon Rekognition is more of an add-on than an independent service.
Priced under Google Vision but higher than Imagga, it seems to aim primarily at the higher end of the market, those with massive amount of data to process, rather than the up and coming startup. It doesn’t offer simple custom training like Clarifai or Imagga does, which will probably leave a lot of more specialized users out of their reach. It is currently available in 3 regions, the US ( East, West) and Ireland.
The biggest surprise, certainly, is the complete lack of product/logo recognition offering. Considering Amazon’s core business, it is certainly a solution they could have easily offered. However, rather than a technical issue, it is probably the concern of helping a competitor emerge that probably fueled their decision not to have included it.
Apparently, Amazon chose the “us too” route rather than becoming a leading innovator. Nevertheless, Amazon can now be counted into the closed club of visual content recognition mighty developers and they will certainly grab a good chunk of the marketplace, even if they are late in the game, if only because of its convenience.
Photo by Martyn Wright 
Author: Paul Melcher
Paul Melcher is a highly influential and visionary leader in visual tech, with 20+ years of experience in licensing, tech innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is the Managing Director of MelcherSystem and has held executive roles at Corbis, Stipple, and more. Melcher received a Digital Media Licensing Association Award and is a board member of Plus Coalition, Clippn, and Anthology, and has been named among the “100 most influential individuals in American photography”