Amazon trials AI feature that enables purchases on competitor websites

Amazon is testing a new in-app service which allows customers to purchase selected products from other brands’ sites if they are not currently available on Amazon.

Buy for Me is currently live on the Amazon shopping app for a select number of US customers.

Buy for Me is enabled by AI and runs on Amazon’s foundation model Bedrock. Amazon said its Nova and Anthropic’s Claude models support the Amazon Shopping app’s agentic capabilities to complete the purchase from start to finish on a customer’s behalf.

Using the feature, customers can search for items including third-party brands and will be taken to a product detail page where they can learn more about the item and make the decision to purchase from another retailer’s website.

The company said it will begin testing with a limited number of stores and products and has plans to roll out the service to more customers and add more products based on feedback.

“We’re always working to invent new ways to make shopping even more convenient, and we’ve created Buy For Me to help customers quickly and easily find and buy products from other brand stores if we don’t currently sell those items in our store,” said Oliver Messenger, shopping director at Amazon. “This new feature uses agentic AI to help customers seamlessly purchase from other brands within the familiar Amazon Shopping app, while also giving brands increased exposure and seamless conversion.”

Earlier this week, Amazon announced the launch of a new AI model that can perform tasks including shopping online, controlling a web browser, and searching the biking distance to a train station.

Amazon’s Nova foundation models are a new generation of foundation models that are trained to perform actions within a web browser.