In a blog post, Amazon revealed that it is beginning to test a new AI purchasing agent, which it calls “Buy for Me,” with a select group of consumers. The Buy for Me function will show consumers things that other websites are selling if Amazon doesn’t have what they’re looking for. Without ever leaving the Amazon Shopping app, consumers can then choose and request to buy one of these things.
Following companies like OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity that have demonstrated similar agents that can visit websites and assist consumers with purchases, Amazon is the most recent to introduce an AI shopping agent. The majority of customers already choose Amazon for any online purchases, but Buy for Me might help Amazon take even more e-commerce business than it now has.
According to Amazon, an AI shopping agent will go to a third-party website, choose a product that a customer has requested, and then enter the customer’s name, delivery address, and payment information to complete the transaction.
The AI agent Nova Act, which Amazon announced earlier this week and has the ability to utilise websites on its own, may be one of those AI models that are the driving force behind the new agentic shopping functionality. In the blog post, Amazon stated that Buy for Me “securely” inserts your billing information on third-party websites using encryption, preventing Amazon from seeing what you’re shopping from outside of its platform.
This is a different strategy from Perplexity’s AI agent, which uses a prepaid debit card to make transactions, and OpenAI and Google’s agents, which require humans to enter credit card information directly.
