I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the ChatGPT images that have taken over the web for the better part of a week. OpenAI revealed that 130 million ChatGPT users created around 700 million AI images with its new tool.
I get it. The service is cool, and the technology is amazing. I used it, too, so I’m one of those millions of ChatGPT users who have used AI to generate images. But that’s not what I’m using AI for on a day-to-day basis.
Instead, I’d be more interested in AI tools that can do things for me and speed up my computing time. I want AI agents like ChatGPT Operator and Deep Research. The former is still unavailable to ChatGPT Plus users, but the latter is. Operator would let me give the AI browsing tasks, and Deep Research can create detailed reports about anything you’d throw at it.
I’m not limited to ChatGPT. I’ll consider any AI agent that can do things for me on the web, and the list includes Amzon’s brilliant Buy for Me AI agent that will let you buy products from other websites from within Amazon if they’re not available from Amazon. That’s a mind-blowing feature to have and something I’d want to use right away.
Amazon is one of the first places I visit when looking for a specific product. Any product. The chances are that Amazon stocks the exact product you want or has something similar. It’s a good place to start your shopping, especially during Amazon’s various sale events. But Amazon can’t stock everything, and that’s where Buy for Me comes in handy.
Amazon launched a new Buy for Me AI agent that lets you purchase goods from other websites from within Amazon, and that’s brilliant. If the thing you need isn’t part of the hundreds of millions of products Amazon stocks, the AI agent will browse other websites on your behalf. How cool is that?
It gets better, as Buy for Me will surface product offers for the item you want from third-party stores in a new section on the mobile app called “Shop brand sites directly.”
If you find your product from that third-party store, you’ll be able to tap the listing and open it within the Amazon Shopping app. You’ll get a familiar page for the product, which is similar to product pages that Amazon makes for the products it stocks.
The best part of the feature is in the AI agent’s name. Buy for Me will let you the item directly from Amazon.
Tap the Buy for Me button, and Amazon will buy the item for you. The purchase will happen on Amazon’s familiar checkout page, where you can choose from saved delivery addresses and payment methods. That means you won’t have to deal with that website’s checkout system or have your details saved with a different shop.
That’s a great feature to have, as I already trust Amazon to protect that sort of sensitive data.
It continues to get better; Amazon will encrypt your personal details and make that purchase on your behalf on that other website. You’ll then be able to track your order from Amazon’s website, though you’ll also receive order confirmation and shipping information from that third-party website via email.
Importantly, Amazon won’t get access to your shopping history from that site or others, which is also an important privacy feature. I don’t want AI agents like Buy for Me to remember my purchase history and preferences.
The only thing you can’t do via Amazon is handle returns and exchanges for a product purchased from a different site. You’ll have to go to that store for additional customer service.
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, Amazon Prime perks will not work with those third-party items. It’s up to that store to handle deliveries to you, not Amazon.
Sadly, Buy for Me is only available in beta to a select few customers in the US. It’ll work on iPhone and Android, with Amazon Nova and Antrhopic Claude AI supporting the AI agent capabilities. It’s unclear when the AI agent will roll out of beta and when it’ll be available in Europe, where I do my Amazon shopping.
Also, the third-party websites the AI agent will visit and shop for items for you will presumably have to support Amazon’s new shopping experience. What I’m getting at is that it may take a while for Buy for Me to be useful.
You’ll find more details about Amazon’s Buy for Me AI agent at this link.
