THE SHORT VERSION

Amazon blocked rival shopping agents — and bet Alexa beats them all

Satirical cartoon: a bouncer in sunglasses blocks a small robot with shopping bags outside an Amazon storefront, while across the street a Shopify store rolls out a red carpet welcoming another small robot carrying an infinity-marked bag, a robot dog at its side. — Machine Age Cartoon · Zimbo

The Wall Street Journal reports shopping agents that find and buy products for users threaten Amazon's status as the first stop for shopping — and Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse from shopping on its site while Walmart and Shopify embraced the agents.

CEO Andy Jassy dismissed the threat on the October 29 earnings call, betting Alexa for Shopping 'is going to be the primary shopping agent customers use to shop Amazon' — and PYMNTS data still has Amazon taking 59 percent of the most recent AI-assisted purchases.