Amazon’s AI agents spark backlash from retailers after listing their products without their knowledge – News

Amazon.com Inc. has irked dozens of online retailers after using experimental artificial intelligence tools to scrape their websites and list their products on its sprawling online marketplace without their knowledge or consent.

The tools in question include “Shop Direct,” which is a feature that allows Amazon customers to browse products from other brands’ websites on Amazon’s store. When looking at those items, consumers may sometimes see a “Buy for Me” button, which activates an AI agent that will purchase the products on their behalf, using the payment information and shipping details they’ve already provided to Amazon.

Amazon launched Shop Direct and Buy for Me last February, and in a statement to Modern Retail, which first broke the story, it explained that they’re currently being tested on some U.S. users. They’re designed to help customers find any product they need, including items not available on its own website.

However, Amazon appears to have been somewhat sneaky about the way the tool works, for it surfaces products from third-parties who are completely unaware that they can be found through the e-commerce giant’s platform. Modern Retail said a number of these businesses have strong objections to their products appearing in Amazon’s listings without their permission, and have taken to social media platforms such as Instagram and Reddit to let their anger be known. Even worse, some of the listings have been inaccurate, with Amazon advertising products that are no longer sold by the brands in question, or having errors in the product descriptions.

Retailers feel “exploited” and “violated”

One of the biggest critics was Bobo Design Studio Chief Executive Angie Chua, who told Modern Retail that she started receiving lots of orders from Amazon’s agent about a week ago, despite never opting into the program. She operates a storefront through Shopify, but has chosen not to sell through Amazon.

According to Chua, she discovered through an FAQ page on Amazon’s website that the onus is on her to opt out of the service, and so she had to send it an email asking it to withdraw her products. She added that the listings were pulled within a few days, but said she felt “exploited” by the experience. “We were forced to be dropshippers on a platform that we have made a conscious decision not to be part of,” Chua said, referring to a business model that involves selling products to shoppers without storing the inventory.

Chua, whose Instagram post about the experience quickly went viral, said she has been contacted by more than 180 small businesses that sell products on platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Squarespace and WooCommerce, which have discovered that their products are also being surfaced through Shop Direct.

Some retailers say they’re angry because they’ve made a conscious decision to avoid doing business with Amazon. Yet the way Amazon surfaces products through Shop Direct makes it appear as if the brands in question are third-party sellers, when they’re not. Emi Moon, founder of a digital art brand called Peachie Kei, said she watched Chua’s viral Instagram post and then discovered that her company’s entire product catalog was listed on Amazon. “The big issue is that it’s a reputational thing,” she said. “I don’t want to be associated with Amazon.”

Moon responded by immediately emailing Amazon to opt-out, but said it’s disturbing that Amazon was allowed to do this in the first place. “I would really like to see these things be opt-in versus opt-out,” she said. “There’s a level of autonomy and consent that’s being violated.”

Worse still, there have been reports of Amazon Shop Direct getting things wrong. In the case of Hitchcock Paper, a Virginia-based stationery supplier, it only became aware of the program after it started receiving dozens of orders for a stress ball product that it doesn’t even sell. All of the orders came from a “buyforme.amazon” email address.

Amazon reiterates support for small businesses

A spokesperson for Amazon said Shop Direct and Buy for Me are designed not only to help shoppers find products it doesn’t sell through its own store, but also help businesses to “reach new customers and drive incremental sales”. Amazon said the programs have received “positive feedback” overall, and reiterated that it’s a staunch supporter of small businesses globally. “Businesses can opt out at any time by emailing [email protected], and we remove them from these programs promptly,” the spokesperson continued.

According to Amazon, Buy for Me doesn’t collect any commissions on customer purchases it facilitates. It pulls product details and pricing information from brands’ public websites and uses agentic AI systems to check that the prices and descriptions are correct and that the listings are in stock. Currently, more than 500,000 products can be purchased using Buy for Me.

Amazon is doing this despite objecting strongly to other companies using AI tools to scrape its own marketplace listings. Last year, the company introduced various measures to prevent third-party crawlers from accessing its website, and it has also threatened to take legal action against those that do it without its permission. In November, it sent Perplexity AI Inc. a cease-and-desist letter regarding its Comet AI browser, which uses AI agents to let people find and buy items from Amazon and other retailers. Amazon said at the time that third-party shopping agents should “respect service provider decisions” on if they want to participate or not.

The initiative is part of a broader push into agentic commerce by Amazon, which has introduced tools such as Auto Buy, which can be used by customers to purchase products when prices drop below a certain threshold. It also offers an AI shopping assistant called Rufus that helps customers search for products by describing what they’re looking for in natural language, before handling the purchase on their behalf. Amazon has said it expects the tool to facilitate more than $10 billion in annual sales.

Image: Amazon