Artificial intelligence (AI) shopping agents are forcing online retailers to reconsider how they attract customers, authorize payments and protect their relationships with shoppers, as technology companies increasingly insert themselves between merchants and buyers.

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Retailers are responding differently. Amazon is blocking prominent outside agents, Target is permitting approved providers, and Walmart is partnering with AI companies to attract customers. Their approaches reflect a broader commercial challenge retailers face. Agents could generate sales while shifting control over transactions and customer information toward the platforms operating them, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Agents including Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s dots are helping consumers choose purchases, bid in auctions, book travel and order groceries. By handling those tasks, they could spare shoppers some of the work that digital services previously transferred from businesses to customers.

For merchants, however, that convenience creates new operational demands. Retailers have spent years learning to attract shoppers through search engines and social media. Serving software acting for those shoppers requires different methods, while offering less visibility into the people behind the purchases.

Unlike customers whose clicks and searches reveal preferences, third-party agents may provide limited information about whom they represent. That makes it harder for merchants to understand purchasing decisions or anticipate future demand.

Different AI models also assess products differently, complicating efforts to influence recommendations.

“That makes it more complicated for marketers, but that also makes it very interesting,” Jim Yu , chief executive of search and AI optimization company BrightEdge , told the Journal.

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