Amazon's new AI agent will buy from rivals for you

You search for an item on Amazon, only to find out they do not sell it. Normally, that is the moment you close the app and take your business to Google or a competing store.

Amazon wants to close that exit door forever.

On Thursday, Amazon announced it has started testing an AI shopping feature called Buy for Me with a subset of users. When Amazon does not carry an item you are hunting for, the feature displays products sold on external websites. You can then request to purchase that external item without ever leaving the Amazon Shopping app.

Behind the scenes, the AI agent navigates to the third-party website, selects the requested product, and automatically enters your name, shipping address, and payment information to seal the deal. Amazon noted that the tool is powered by its Nova AI models alongside Anthropic's Claude. It likely leans on Nova Act, an agent Amazon unveiled earlier this week built specifically to navigate the web autonomously.

Other big players like Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity have already demoed agents that can browse and buy. But Amazon is taking a noticeably bolder approach with your wallet. While Google and OpenAI still make humans type in their own payment details, and Perplexity relies on a prepaid debit card, Amazon claims Buy for Me uses encryption to securely insert your billing information on third-party sites, keeping what you buy outside Amazon hidden even from Amazon itself.

Handing full checkout authority to AI is not without friction. AI agents are notoriously prone to hallucinations, and TechCrunch noted that these shopping tools often take a painfully long time to complete a task, if they do not get completely stuck along the way. Amazon is essentially asking shoppers to trust that an agent will not accidentally order a thousand pairs of socks instead of ten. And if you need a return or exchange, Amazon will simply hand you off to the external store.

Why it matters

We think Amazon's move is a clever grab for ultimate platform stickiness, but one that comes with real consumer friction. By turning external websites into invisible backend suppliers, Amazon ensures that users never have a reason to leave its search bar, extending its e-commerce dominance far beyond its own warehouses.

However, letting an AI agent autonomously swipe your card feels like a leap of faith most everyday shoppers might not be ready for. Between the real risk of ordering errors, the awkward lag of web-browsing agents, and a messy return process that Amazon washes its hands of, the convenience might quickly turn into a headache. Until these agents become flawless at checkout and customer service reconciles the two storefronts, we would recommend keeping your hands on the credit card.