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Amazons AI is shopping on your behalf where it's not supposed to  and
retailers arent happy

Date:
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 01:50:31 +0000

Description:
Amazons AI-powered Buy for Me service is stirring controversy by placing
orders from retailers who say they never agreed to be part of the program

FULL STORY

Amazons latest experiment in AI-powered shopping may be helping you find the
perfect purchase by running roughshod over third-party businesses. The Shop
Direct and Buy for Me features that Amazon began testing last year streamline
the process of finding and buying items that Amazon may not have in its
inventory. 

If you click the Buy for Me button, Amazons system uses information pulled
from a brands public website to place the order on your behalf using your
details. From the shoppers point of view, it feels like you're just buying
something on Amazon. But, from the retailers point of view, Amazon just 
walked into their store uninvited and started ringing up customers. 

In recent weeks, online retailers have begun complaining to Amazon and 
sharing stories on social media about how they were never asked if they 
wanted to participate. Some say they didnt even know the program existed 
until orders began landing in their inboxes from unfamiliar buyforme.amazon
email addresses. Others say Amazon listed products that were out of stock or
never intended for direct-to-consumer sales.

You might not have noticed if you're just shopping on Amazon. You search for
something, see a product that looks legitimate, and the purchase all happens
in the background. The aggravation is all on the retailer side of things. 

"Products I dont even have anymore (like fully deleted from the back end) are
being sold under this shop stores directly section of the app," one retailer
related on Reddit. They use AI images of items that arent mine, and
authorizing orders to my site for items that are out of stock. I did not opt
in to this nor is there an easy way to opt out." 

Amazon has said the AI tool isn't doing anything untoward since the listings
are based on publicly available product and pricing information. The system 
is also supposed to check that items are in stock and correctly priced before
offering them to customers. Should there be an issue, Amazon has an email
address listed for merchants to send an opt-out request.

AI shopper sneaking in

Putting the burden of avoiding Amazon's AI agent on the third-party brands
understandably annoys some of those retailers. Plus, it doesn't help them 
with the orders already placed. Not to mention the businesses that
intentionally stay away from Amazon for financial or marketing reasons might
not like being dragged onto the platform by ambitious AI shoppers. 

And that's even before considering accuracy issues like the one described by
the Reddit post. AI systems are only as good as the data they ingest, and if
Amazon uses outdated or mismatched products and images, it's the brand 
getting the order that has to scramble to explain. 

There's an extra element of irony in this situation since Amazon has pushed
hard against any external AI agents scraping its own platform for data. It
outright blocks bots from Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity. Now, Amazon itself
is using AI to scrape other retailers sites in the name of convenience. 

For shoppers, this contradiction mostly fades into the background. Its easy 
to imagine how appealing an AI shopper finding products and comparing prices
across the internet might be.  But after years of companies scraping public
information with little pushback, having the process directly tied to AI
purchasing might make the problems more tangible, and Amazon's AI shoppers 
may have to start knocking and announcing themselves before they take over 
the register. 

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/amazons-ai-is-shopping-on-yo
ur-behalf-where-its-not-supposed-to-and-retailers-arent-happy

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