The insight: Amazon is trying to figure out how it can benefit from the AI agentic boom without giving shopping agents unfettered access to its site, according to a report by The Information.

The quandary: Amazon is concerned that the gradual shift to agents could reduce traffic to its app and website, which in turn could hurt its lucrative ad business and its efforts to become shoppers’ primary port of call. That concern is not unique: DoorDash aired similar worries in discussions with OpenAI as the latter prepared to launch its Operator agent.

But keeping AI agents at arms-length isn’t a viable solution if—as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy fervently believes—they become a routine part of how people live and shop. That is pushing retailers to find a middle ground, one where they can control how agents interact with their properties while satisfying consumers’ desire for AI-powered shopping tools.

Amazon’s strategy: While some companies, like Instacart and eBay, were quick to forge partnerships with AI companies, Amazon is taking a more cautious approach. The retailer recently updated its legal policies to specify how agents can interact with its site, barring behavior that copies humans and evading measures like captchas designed to weed out bots. Amazon also reserves the right to bar or limit agents’ access, use, or interactions with its services at its “sole discretion.”

Rather than reconfiguring its website to make it easier for agents to scan product pages and make purchases for shoppers, Amazon—like Walmart—is leaning toward developing its own agents that will interact with external AI tools. That strategy will help avoid some of the pitfalls of agentic shopping (inaccurate pricing and product recommendations) while enabling the retailer to maintain some control over the experience.

At the same time, Amazon is trying to push shoppers toward its own AI tools—including its shopping agent, Buy for Me, which allows users to buy products not sold on Amazon without leaving the retailer’s site. Higher adoption for those features could make customers less likely to rely on alternative shopping tools—although that dynamic could easily shift the more deeply embedded AI agents become in users’ everyday lives.

Our take: While agentic commerce is far from the norm for the time being, retailers need to be prepared. That’s especially true for companies with retail media businesses, given the potential for AI agents to upend their ability to monetize their sites.

Go further: Read our report on AI Agents and the Customer Journey.