Amazon just took a bold step beyond its marketplace.
The e-commerce giant has begun testing “Buy for Me,” an AI-powered shopping assistant that can purchase products on third-party websites right from inside the Amazon app. If you’re looking for something that Amazon doesn’t sell directly, this new feature will scan the internet, find it elsewhere, and buy it on your behalf.
Just shop and let AI do the rest
Amazon announced the experimental feature on Thursday in a blog post, making it the latest tech heavyweight to join the AI shopping race. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have all launched agents that help users browse and find what they want across the web.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say you’re searching for a niche item that Amazon doesn’t carry. Instead of showing a dead end, the Buy for Me agent will list that product from other retailers. Select the item, hit purchase, and the AI fills out your name, address, and payment information, all while keeping you inside the Amazon app.
It’s like having a virtual assistant who shops online stores for you. Except it’s powered by AI.
Amazon says it’s using its own Nova AI models to run the show, alongside help from Claude, an AI model by Anthropic. One of the tools in use is Nova Act, a recently announced AI agent capable of navigating websites without human input.
The Downside?
But while the promise is convenience, it comes with some real questions, especially about privacy and trust.
Amazon claims the AI uses encryption to insert your billing data into third-party websites securely. According to the company, Amazon can’t actually see what you’re ordering from these external retailers. That’s a big contrast to how competitors like OpenAI and Google operate, which still require users to manually input credit card details. Perplexity uses a prepaid card to process purchases, adding yet another approach to this growing space.
Still, giving your credit card to an AI that might hallucinate or glitch out? That might feel like a gamble to some.
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In real-world testing, agents from OpenAI and Google have been known to slow down, get stuck, or make odd decisions when navigating websites. Amazon is now essentially asking users to hand over a very personal, and financially sensitive task to a bot.
Returns and exchanges won’t go through Amazon, either. The agent will simply point users to the original retailer’s policy and process.
For now, Buy for Me is only rolling out to a small group of testers. But if it catches on, Amazon could tighten its grip on global e-commerce even further by making every online purchase start and finish on its app, even when it’s not the seller.
And that’s a power move.
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