What Amazon’s Not-So-Secret Agent Could Do to Shopping

Forget tariffs and the stock market roller coaster just for a moment. As much as Trump’s tariffs pose a worry to tech (as we discussed here and here), a much bigger existential threat is lurking in the background for many app-based companies. And that is artificial intelligence agents, software that enables a chatbot to order a pizza, book a flight or handle various other tasks on behalf of a consumer. The growing availability of agents threatens to undercut over time the role apps play, making them easier to replace, as we explained today in this report in our Applied AI newsletter and in this story last month.

Both those stories demonstrated that some companies are conscious of the issue—DoorDash executives raised their concerns in a meeting with OpenAI, which in January rolled out its Operator agent to subscribers who pay for its pricey Pro tier. But there’s a twist. While Amazon is among those potentially threatened by the rise of agents, the online shopping giant last week quietly announced it was testing a new shopping feature with its own agent-based shopping feature that could one day undercut other shopping apps. It’s a smart move to get ahead of the threat.