Amazon AI technology is at the center of a new controversy involving its “Buy for Me” experimental feature. This tool allows the platform to act as a digital proxy, purchasing items from third-party websites when they are not available in Amazon’s own inventory. Retailers have reported receiving orders from “buyforme.amazon” email addresses for products they never intended to list on the platform. Many small business owners are frustrated because the AI often pulls outdated pricing or images from their public websites, creating a disconnect between what the customer expects and what the merchant can actually provide.
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Amazon AI scraping and industry hypocrisy
Amazon AI practices have been labeled hypocritical by some industry analysts. While Amazon actively blocks AI crawlers from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity to protect its own data, it is now using similar scraping techniques to populate its own “Shop Direct” listings with data from smaller competitors. This “agentic shopping” model places the burden of opting out on the retailers themselves, requiring them to send formal requests to Amazon to stop the AI from featured their products. This power dynamic has led to claims that Amazon is overstepping its boundaries by entering private digital storefronts uninvited.
Amazon AI accuracy and future adjustments
Amazon AI developers maintain that the system is intended to improve consumer convenience by centralizing the shopping experience. However, the company admits the feature is still an experiment and is working to resolve “kinks” related to stock accuracy and image mismatched. As of early 2026, the pushback from the retail community may force Amazon to implement more transparent “opt-in” protocols. For now, the conflict highlights the growing tension between automated AI agents and the independent businesses that make up the broader digital economy.
