Amazon is reportedly taking steps to block other companies’ artificial intelligence shopping tools from its website. The eCommerce giant updated the code on its site to include language that keeps out new AI agents from Google. Amazon has taken similar precautions with bots from companies like Perplexity, Anthropic and OpenAI. It appears as if Amazon is preventing its products from even showing up in some search results for outside chatbots and search tools. A search for Amazon products using Perplexity and ChatGPT turned up results from other retailers but did not directly point to listings on Amazon. These policies are an “extreme example” of how retailers are weighing precautions against other companies’ AI tools. Shopify has taken a narrower focus, while Walmart’s approach is more wait-and-see. If AI tools, such as chatbots and searches that provide product recommendations, or AI-powered personal shoppers become more popular, retailers could find fewer people directly browsing their sites