Amazon is taking decisive action to safeguard its eCommerce position as the emergence of AI-powered shopping bots transforms consumer purchasing behavior. The online retail giant is actively blocking third-party artificial intelligence (AI) shopping tools from accessing its platform, while simultaneously exploring partnerships and developing its own AI-driven shopping solutions. This strategy emphasizes the significant stakes involved in payments, commerce, and customer data ownership as automated purchasing becomes more prevalent.
According to a report from CNBC published on December 24, the rise of AI shopping agents has created a “leader’s dilemma” for Amazon. These innovative tools enable consumers to search for products, compare prices, and complete purchases within a chatbot interface, effectively bypassing traditional retail websites. Such a shift poses a threat to Amazon’s direct relationship with its customers, its advertising revenue, and its control over the data that drives sales and customer loyalty.
In response to these challenges, Amazon has adopted a defensive strategy. The company has recently updated the coding of its website to prevent numerous AI bots from crawling its pages and scraping valuable data, including those linked to prominent AI service providers. Additionally, Amazon has escalated its legal measures by suing Perplexity over its AI browser agent, which allegedly enables unauthorized purchases on behalf of users.
Concurrently, Amazon is making significant investments in its own AI capabilities. It is developing tools such as Rufus, a shopping chatbot, and “Buy for Me,” an experimental feature that facilitates purchases from other retailers within Amazon’s application. These initiatives highlight Amazon’s commitment to maintaining its competitive edge in a rapidly evolving market.
The company’s approach has undergone significant transformation recently. CEO Andy Jassy has acknowledged the inevitable integration of AI agents into everyday life and indicated a potential openness to collaborating with third-party agents in the future. A recent job posting for a corporate development leader experienced in “agentic commerce” suggests that Amazon may be preparing for a more cooperative phase, all while trying to protect its most critical data assets.
Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, articulated the potential costs retailers may incur, stating, “With an agent on ChatGPT, retailers risk relinquishing transactions on their site to pay a toll on someone else’s highway for the same transaction.” This sentiment reflects the increasing tension between traditional retailers and the rising influence of AI shopping agents.
PYMNTS has closely monitored this evolving landscape, reporting on the rapid emergence of agentic commerce models and their implications for payments, merchant economics, and platform control. The publication has also documented Amazon’s own AI shopping initiatives, including the expanding functionalities of Rufus and experiments that allow automated purchasing when prices dip below specific thresholds.
For leaders in payments and commerce, Amazon’s balancing act serves as a crucial indicator of the industry’s trajectory. As AI agents transition from novelty to essential infrastructure, the competition over who controls the checkout experience—and the payment systems that support it—has reached a pivotal juncture. The ongoing evolution of eCommerce is underscored by the need for traditional retailers to adapt to these changes, ensuring they do not fall behind in the increasingly automated landscape of consumer purchasing.
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