Amazon has begun testing a new AI-powered feature called “Buy for Me,” which allows its app to make purchases for you from other websites.
Here's how it works:
- When a customer searches Amazon for an item from a particular brand, they may see a section of results labeled “Shop brand sites directly.”
- If they click the “Buy for Me” button underneath an item, they are taken to a product detail page inside the Amazon app that provides product information similar to what they'd see on one of Amazon's own listings.
- If they decide to move forward with the transaction, Amazon will purchase the item for them from the brand's website.
- Amazon uses agentic AI mixed with a customer's stored shipping and payment information to complete the purchase on their behalf.
- Amazon says that it sends the information encrypted, and that it's not able to see customers' previous and future orders from the brand's website — although I doubt any Amazon customers would care if they did.
- The actual transaction is happening on the brand's website, so the customer will receive an e-mail confirmation from the brand itself for the purchase, but they'll be able to track the order within the Amazon app through a new Buy for Me tab on the Your Orders page.
- Buy for Me does not offer Amazon’s usual buyer protection or generous return policy since the sale is between the shopper and a third-party website, which Amazon discloses on its site.
Amazon says it is not receiving a commission from purchases made through the experimental feature, but didn't mention if it was going to negotiate a cut from sales in the future. (Early Prediction: They will — as either a commission, an advertising fee, or both.)
The feature, which runs on Amazon’s Nova AI system, is currently in beta and only available to a subset of customers in the US via the Amazon app, featuring a limited number of brand stores and products for now.
Amazon is the latest company to unveil an AI shopping agent, joining OpenAI and Perplexity, which have both recently showcased similar agents that can visit websites and make purchases on behalf of users.