The news: Amazon announced over 100 updates to Alexa for Shopping, its AI shopping assistant, aimed at expanding the tool’s utility ahead of the holiday season.

The announcement came as Amazon reported disappointing Q3 2026 results. Net sales rose 12% to $201.9 billion, while net income fell 2.3% to $20.7 billion, or $1.89 a share. Both sales and per-share profit missed Wall Street estimates.

The new capabilities include creating holiday gift lists or wedding registries, resolving billing questions, maximizing Prime and other subscription benefits, and updating delivery instructions.

They build on existing Alexa for Shopping’s features that alert shoppers to new releases and product restocks, automatically buy items when they hit a set target price, and track prices and discounts.

Why it matters: Amazon is counting on Alexa for Shopping, as well as other initiatives like Shop Direct, to keep customers from using third-party AI assistants to shop on its platform. According to Amazon, over 400 million customers have used Alexa for Shopping in the past year, while the number of shoppers using the tool’s agentic features has grown more than eightfold since the start of the year.

However, in the broader scheme of Amazon’s business, its agentic shopping features are less incremental to growth than initiatives such as same-day perishables delivery, which is helping drive up order frequency and grow the company’s share of grocery sales. While both Alexa for Shopping and its delivery features are aimed at making Amazon stickier with shoppers, the latter is truly resonating. Sales of fresh groceries and everyday essentials grew roughly three times faster than the rest of Amazon’s retail business in Q3 2026 and represented about half of all units sold, per the retailer’s earnings release.

Still, it’s easy to see why Amazon is attempting to promote Alexa for Shopping in the leadup to a holiday season where AI is expected to play a larger role in shopping decisions. Fifty-seven percent of US holiday gift buyers expect to use AI-powered tools, per an August Tinuiti report. Use cases include product searches (26%), finding deals (25%), comparing products (23%), generating personalized gift ideas or recommendations (16%), and virtual try-ons and product visualizations (13%). By beefing up Alexa for Shopping’s capabilities now, Amazon is hoping that holiday shoppers will make its platform their primary destination for research and purchases, rather than turn to third-party platforms like ChatGPT or Gemini that might direct them to a retail competitor.

Implications for retail: Amazon’s insistence on owning the AI shopping experience—and keeping third-party agents out—makes the retailer vulnerable should agentic commerce gain broader consumer acceptance. The damage could be particularly acute for Amazon’s ad business, since its appeal is rooted in the huge numbers of consumers who start—and end—their shopping journey on the retailer’s platforms.

But equally, the retailer has several advantages that could help it withstand pressure from third-party AI agents. Amazon accounts for nearly 40% of US retail ecommerce sales, underscoring the success of its efforts to get people to spend more money and time on its platform. The retailer’s reach is fuel for its ad business, which accounts for nearly 80% of total retail media revenues and is further buoyed by the expansion of advertising on Prime Video.

Amazon’s earnings miss is a reminder that even as retailers prepare for the growth of agentic commerce, they shouldn’t lose sight of the fundamentals that drive customer loyalty: value, convenience, and a positive shopping experience.