Amazon lets shoppers text Alexa to find and buy products

What Amazon announced

Amazon on Friday said it is launching a text-based interface for Alexa for Shopping that lets customers interact with the AI shopping assistant through standard SMS messages. The feature is rolling out to a small group of US customers today, who will receive a text message inviting them to enable it, and will expand to millions more in the coming weeks, the company said in a statement on its corporate newsroom.

The text agent builds on the Alexa for Shopping service that Amazon launched in May, which itself was a rebranding of the Rufus AI shopping assistant. Customers who receive access can search for products, compare options, add items to their cart, and complete purchases entirely through text message conversations with a contact that appears in their phone as Alexa Shopping.

People who have not yet received an invitation can sign up on an Amazon landing page to be notified when more invites are sent, the company said.

How the text shopping agent works

Users can text Alexa for Shopping much like they would message a friend. The agent handles a broad range of requests: ordering weekly groceries, finding birthday gifts, reordering household essentials, checking delivery status, and comparing products. It can also process photos, letting users snap a picture of an item they see while scrolling and ask the agent to find similar products on Amazon, according to TechCrunch and The Verge.

Rajiv Mehta, Amazon's vice president of Conversational Shopping, said in the announcement: "Customers often jot down what they need the moment they think of it in their notes, in their messages, in their group chats. Now with Alexa for Shopping, your personal shopping agent is just a text away." Message it what you need and Alexa goes to work on your behalf searching, comparing, and buying so you can get on with your day.

The agent learns user preferences over time. Tell it you only want vegan products and it remembers. Mention you are training for a marathon and it factors that into recommendations. It can also track deals and prices, alerting customers when a watched item goes on sale.

Cross-platform continuity

Amazon is also rolling out conversation continuity across channels. A request started over text can carry over to Alexa for Shopping in the Amazon Shopping app, on Amazon.com, and on Alexa-enabled devices. A customer who starts browsing gift options over text while waiting for an appointment can open the Amazon Shopping app at home to compare and check out, with the agent remembering what was discussed.

Over time, the Alexa Shopping contact in a user's phone will also include Amazon order updates, delivery notifications, and deal alerts, all in the same SMS thread as shopping conversations.

Amazon blocks Muse, builds its own agent

Amazon's move comes months after it blocked Meta's Muse AI agent from querying its shopping site in September, as reported by TechCrunch. Rather than open its platform to third-party AI shopping agents, Amazon is building a proprietary alternative that keeps users inside its own ecosystem. The approach mirrors what other large platforms are doing: Walmart, for example, recently announced it would let customers shop using their own AI agents through an Agent Gateway and MCP protocol, but with strict spending limits and approval rules. Walmart's approach opens the platform to third-party agents; Amazon's keeps the shopping experience within Alexa for Shopping.

Amazon is one of several companies introducing text-based AI shopping interfaces this year. OpenAI launched Dots in October, an always-on personal AI agent that works over text messages. DoorDash introduced Ask DoorDash in September, a text-based ordering chatbot that lets users get dish recommendations and place food delivery orders through SMS.

400 million users and growing fast

Amazon said more than 400 million customers have used Alexa for Shopping in the last 12 months, and the number of customers using the service's agentic features has grown more than eight times since the start of the year. The service handles not just search and purchase but also managing lists, registries, subscriptions, and accounts through natural-language conversation.

The text launch is the latest in a series of upgrades to Alexa for Shopping. In October, Amazon added more than 100 new capabilities including Shop Direct, which lets customers discover and buy products from stores across the web, and the ability to set up alerts that monitor Amazon and the broader web for new releases and price changes.

What it means for AI shopping agents

The convenience of text-based shopping comes with trade-offs. Customers who give Alexa for Shopping permission to complete purchases automatically may find it frictionless for routine orders, but the same convenience could lead to impulse spending or errors if the agent misinterprets a request. Amazon limits the most sensitive actions such as completing purchases to requests that require explicit user confirmation, though the exact boundaries of automatic vs. confirmed purchases are not detailed in the announcement.

The broader trend is clear: platforms that once debated whether to allow third-party AI agents on their properties are now building their own. Amazon blocked Muse and then launched a text agent. DoorDash built Ask DoorDash instead of relying on third-party integrations. Walmart took the opposite approach with its Agent Gateway, but the end result is the same: every major retailer is racing to define how AI agents interact with its commerce infrastructure. For consumers who already text their shopping list to themselves, texting an AI agent that acts on it may be the easiest step yet.

Privacy and user control

Amazon said conversations with the text shopping agent are encrypted in transit and at rest, and users can review, export, or delete their chat history at any time from their Amazon account settings. The agent also supports purchase confirmation requirements: customers can set the service to ask for approval before any order is placed, preventing accidental or unauthorized purchases.

The announcement did not specify how Amazon uses the conversational data for model training or whether customers can opt out of having their shopping conversations improve Alexa. The company has faced scrutiny over privacy practices with Alexa voice recordings in the past and has since introduced tools to auto-delete recordings and manage data retention settings.

Availability

The text-based Alexa for Shopping feature starts rolling out today to a subset of US customers by invitation. Recipients receive a text message asking them to enable the feature. Eligible users can search for products, compare items, add to cart, and purchase through text messages. The feature will roll out to millions more customers over the coming weeks. Customers who have not yet received an invite can sign up on the Amazon landing page.

Amazon has not announced pricing for the text-based Alexa for Shopping service beyond standard carrier SMS rates, though the service is free to use. The company said the feature works on any phone that can send and receive SMS, including both smartphones and feature phones, widening access to AI-assisted shopping without requiring an app download or internet connection on the user's side.