Amazon Offers AI Shopping Technology to Retailers Through AWS

Amazon has begun licensing the artificial intelligence shopping technology it built for its own storefront to other retailers, positioning AWS as the infrastructure layer for AI-driven commerce across the broader industry.

In a blog post published Wednesday, the company said it is packaging the "architecture, starter code and learnings" from Alexa for Shopping — its recently rebranded e-commerce agent — into a service that other retailers can deploy on their own storefronts within as little as 60 days, tailored to their own catalog and branding.

The first confirmed customer is Kate Spade, the luxury fashion brand owned by Tapestry, which used the service to launch a gifting assistant.

Amazon said additional retailers are "currently in testing," though the company did not name them or specify a timeline for broader availability.

Routing the product through AWS rather than Amazon's retail division is a deliberate structural choice. Retailers who might be reluctant to share customer and catalog data with a direct competitor can do so under the AWS umbrella, which operates as a distinct commercial entity.

The move follows a pattern Amazon has established over roughly two decades. The company built AWS after developing internal cloud infrastructure to support its own retail operations, then opened it to outside customers. It has since applied the same model to cashier-less checkout, warehousing, and supply chain services.

Earlier this month, Amazon rebranded its on-site shopping chatbot from Rufus to Alexa for Shopping and enabled it by default in search queries on its storefront.

The commercial launch comes as competition in AI shopping intensifies. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have each released research and shopping agent tools, though some have encountered technical problems and difficulties onboarding retail partners. Retailers including Walmart, Target, Etsy, Gap, and eBay have pursued a dual strategy — building proprietary tools while also entering partnerships with OpenAI and Google. Salesforce has separately pitched chatbot and agent services to the retail sector.

Amazon has taken a notably more closed approach, declining to partner with rival AI platforms and blocking external agents from scraping its site. It has instead focused on internal development, including a feature called Buy for Me that executes purchases for users on third-party retail websites.

In Wednesday's post, Amazon argued that retailers should control their own AI-powered shopping experiences rather than ceding that relationship to an outside intermediary. "Retailers already possess deep vertical knowledge about their products, customers, and categories that no general-purpose AI can match," the company said.

Whether retailers accept that framing — and are willing to build on Amazon's technology stack rather than a neutral third party's — will determine how effectively AWS can establish itself as the default platform for AI commerce outside of Amazon's own walls.