Amazon CEO Downplays AI Shopping Agent Impact

CEO Andy Jassy reports minimal revenue effects from third-party AI agents while growing in-house Alexa adoption.

Updated on Oct. 29, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence

Amazon CEO Downplays AI Shopping Agent Impact

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Would you prefer AI assistants that can shop across all retailers instead of just one?

During the Q3 2025 earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated that third-party AI shopping agents have had a minimal impact on company advertising revenue. The company is actively blocking unauthorized scraping from these external bots to protect its sponsored listing visibility and data integrity.

Why it matters

Amazon maintains competitive advantages by limiting outside data access while prioritizing its internal AI tools that boost customer conversion rates. By restricting third-party scraping, the company preserves its control over product accuracy, pricing information, and consumer trust.

Alexa users in the US spend approximately 40% more per order than typical customers. Amazon is currently developing proprietary ad formats, including Sponsored Prompts and Branded Conversations, to integrate directly into the Alexa interface.

The players

Andy Jassy

He is the CEO of Amazon who oversees the company's strategic direction and cloud computing division.

Amazon

It is a global technology and e-commerce company that provides retail, cloud, and digital assistant services.

The details

Amazon is actively blocking external agents from scraping product and pricing data to maintain its ecosystem dominance. The company is simultaneously exploring potential partnerships and tools to allow third-party agents to integrate with Amazon Ads in the future.

Amazon began work on agentic AI software in 2024.
Alexa for Shopping reached 300 million to 350 million customers over the past 12 months.
CEO Andy Jassy discussed the impact of AI agents during the Q3 2025 earnings call.

The Tech Race

This defensive data strategy marks a pivotal shift as established e-commerce giants transition from open web access to walled-garden AI ecosystems. The company is effectively replacing traditional referral traffic models with a proprietary structure designed to retain user data and ad spend.

Shoppers may find that specialized third-party shopping agents provide less accurate pricing and availability data due to the restrictions placed on unauthorized scraping. Conversely, users who rely on Alexa for their shopping routine will likely see new ad formats, such as Sponsored Prompts, integrated into their experience.

The takeaway

Amazon is prioritizing its internal ecosystem and data control to sustain higher per-order spending from its user base. Shoppers should anticipate a more curated experience as the company leans into its proprietary ad formats over external agent recommendations.