Major merchants welcome AI agents, Amazon blocks competition

Chris Jones, Managing Director at PSE Consulting, published findings on September 16, 2025, revealing that main UK and US eCommerce retailers actively welcome synthetic intelligence brokers reasonably than blocking them. The analysis contradicts widespread assumptions about service provider resistance to agentic commerce, with Amazon standing as the first exception implementing complete bot restrictions.

In keeping with Jones’ evaluation, “nearly all of the retailers we converse to are very eager to interact with the brand new agentic setting and, on the entire, welcome the alternatives offered to draw and have interaction new buyer teams.” The consulting agency focuses on funds and fintech, working with purchasers throughout the European marketplace for over 20 years.

The findings problem prevailing trade narratives about service provider hostility towards AI buying brokers. Jones characterised blocking brokers as “usually thought to be too excessive: utilizing a hammer to crack a nut.” Most retailers view agentic commerce as a chance reasonably than a risk to their present buyer relationships.

Technical implementation varies throughout retailers

The PSE Consulting evaluate examined high UK and US eCommerce websites, analyzing their technical approaches to AI agent detection and administration. The analysis recognized distinct classes of service provider responses to synthetic intelligence crawlers and automatic buying methods.

Retailers expressing enthusiasm for AI brokers prioritize identification and monitoring over outright blocking. “Their issues focus primarily on with the ability to establish and monitor the actions of brokers to allow them to perceive how they differ from conventional direct to shopper modes of buying,” Jones defined. This strategy treats AI brokers as a brand new buyer phase requiring specialised administration methods.

The identification course of allows retailers to develop tailor-made optimization approaches. As soon as AI brokers are detected, retailers start “the method of managing them like another buyer group: understanding what drives conversion, how one can handle messaging, exceptions, danger and so on.” This technique mirrors conventional buyer segmentation practices tailored for autonomous buying methods.

Nonetheless, a number of main platforms preserve energetic bot detection methods that will intrude with agentic experiences. Corporations together with Temu and Wayfair make use of “energetic bot blocking which can impression the agentic expertise,” in keeping with the analysis. These restrictions stem from “real issues about bots, reasonably than agentic commerce itself.”

Amazon maintains restrictive insurance policies

Amazon represents probably the most important exception to service provider openness towards AI brokers. The retailer explicitly disallows OpenAI’s crawler in robots.txt and blocks different AI bots from Anthropic, Meta, and comparable firms. The platform makes use of “rigorous bot-detection” together with fingerprinting and AWS WAF to forestall automated scraping.

The restrictions align with Amazon’s improvement of competing AI buying instruments. The corporate launched Rufus, an AI chatbot presently testing promoting options, alongside a “buy-for-me” characteristic that purchases objects from third-party web sites for purchasers. These inside developments place Amazon to regulate AI integration on its platform whereas proscribing exterior agent entry.

Business analysts view Amazon’s blocking technique via aggressive lenses. Eric Seufert from Cellular Dev Memo argued that blocking AI brokers serves Amazon’s enterprise pursuits. “The basic flaw with ‘agentic commerce’ or ‘agentic promoting’ is that it violates the motivations of shops to regulate the client relationship and monetize their first-party knowledge with promoting,” Seufert noticed.

Business implications for agentic commerce

The analysis reveals broader implications for the rising agentic commerce panorama. Most retailers acknowledge the potential worth of AI-mediated buying experiences whereas sustaining management over buyer interactions. This balanced strategy contrasts sharply with Amazon’s restrictive insurance policies.

Smaller retailers could profit from embracing AI brokers whereas bigger platforms preserve restrictions. Promoting know-how knowledgeable Karsten Weide prompt that “blocking private buying bots shall be a shedding defensive battle,” predicting aggressive benefits for specialised retailers that welcome agentic commerce.

The shift towards AI-mediated commerce might reshape promoting methods throughout the trade. Weide indicated that “D/R promoting will fade. Model promoting will acquire in significance as we wish to affect shoppers earlier than they inform their agent what to do.” This transformation would prioritize model consciousness campaigns over direct response codecs presently dominating digital advertising.

Technical issues for AI agent administration

The PSE Consulting findings spotlight technical necessities for efficient AI agent integration. Retailers require strong identification methods able to distinguishing between malicious bots and bonafide AI buying brokers. This distinction determines whether or not automated methods obtain restricted entry or full commerce performance.

Profitable AI agent administration entails a number of technical parts. Retailers should implement monitoring methods that monitor agent habits patterns, conversion charges, and interplay strategies. These analytics allow optimization of AI-specific person experiences whereas sustaining safety in opposition to dangerous automated actions.

The identification course of additionally allows specialised buyer journey optimization. AI brokers could exhibit totally different searching patterns, product choice standards, and buying behaviors in comparison with human consumers. Understanding these variations permits retailers to tailor interfaces, product suggestions, and checkout processes for optimum agent efficiency.

Aggressive dynamics in AI commerce

The divergent approaches between Amazon and different main retailers replicate broader aggressive dynamics in AI-powered commerce. Amazon’s restrictions shield its knowledge benefits whereas probably limiting buyer selection in AI-mediated buying experiences.

Competing platforms together with Shopify have adopted totally different methods. Shopify launched warning language to retailers’ robots.txt information reasonably than implementing complete blocking. The platform’s “Robotic & agent coverage” requires “buy-for-me” brokers to incorporate human evaluate steps and combine Shopify’s checkout know-how.

Walmart and eBay haven’t carried out modifications blocking AI bots from their websites, in keeping with critiques of their robots.txt information. This divergence suggests totally different strategic approaches to balancing aggressive positioning with potential advantages from AI-powered buying instruments.

Market analysis helps service provider optimism

The PSE Consulting findings align with broader market analysis indicating rising acceptance of AI commerce instruments. Current evaluation means that 80% of firms using cybersecurity agency HUMAN Safety’s platform selected to dam recognized massive language mannequin user-agents outright, however this primarily displays safety issues reasonably than opposition to legit agentic commerce.

The advertising group has proven rising curiosity in AI agent integration alternatives. Amazon’s introduction of agentic AI across its seller platform demonstrates inside recognition of AI agent worth whereas sustaining exterior restrictions.

The event of specialised AI commerce instruments continues accelerating throughout the trade. Technical guides for building functional AI marketing agents have emerged from developer communities, addressing implementation challenges for organizations in search of autonomous advertising methods.

Future implications for retail advertising

The analysis suggests elementary modifications approaching the retail advertising panorama. As retailers develop AI agent administration capabilities, conventional buyer acquisition and retention methods could require important adaptation.

Advertising and marketing professionals should contemplate how merchandise seem to algorithmic advice methods reasonably than solely human consumers. Success will probably require optimization of product knowledge, specs, and metadata to make sure visibility when prospects make pure language requests to AI assistants.

The direct integration of AI brokers into commerce platforms raises questions on buyer journey possession and attribution. Advertising and marketing groups accustomed to direct buyer relationships could must recalibrate acquisition methods, lifetime worth calculations, and efficiency measurement frameworks.

Knowledge from the analysis signifies that retailers view AI brokers as complementary to present buyer channels reasonably than substitute methods. This angle allows improvement of built-in methods that leverage each human and AI-mediated buying experiences for optimum enterprise outcomes.

The findings place most main retailers for proactive engagement with agentic commerce whereas Amazon maintains its restrictive strategy. This divergence creates distinct aggressive dynamics that will affect buyer habits and platform choice as AI buying brokers develop into extra prevalent.

In keeping with Jones, “Amazon is the service provider exception, not the rule” in approaches to AI agent administration. This evaluation suggests the broader retail trade acknowledges alternatives in agentic commerce whereas the biggest platform maintains protecting limitations in opposition to exterior AI integration.

Timeline

Abstract

Who: Chris Jones, Managing Director at PSE Consulting, carried out analysis analyzing main UK and US eCommerce retailers’ approaches to AI brokers. The consulting agency focuses on funds and fintech with over 20 years of European market expertise.

What: Analysis revealing that almost all main eCommerce retailers actively welcome AI brokers and agentic commerce alternatives, opposite to widespread trade assumptions about service provider resistance. Amazon stands because the notable exception implementing complete bot blocking measures.

When: Findings printed September 16, 2025, based mostly on PSE Consulting’s evaluate of high UK/US eCommerce websites and direct service provider conversations about AI agent integration methods.

The place: Evaluation coated main UK and US eCommerce platforms, with specific deal with technical implementation approaches throughout totally different service provider classes and platform insurance policies towards AI agent entry.

Why: The analysis addresses misconceptions about service provider hostility towards agentic commerce whereas highlighting aggressive dynamics between platforms that welcome AI brokers versus these implementing restrictive blocking measures. The findings matter for advertising professionals navigating the shift towards AI-mediated buying experiences and planning methods for rising autonomous commerce channels.