Tech giant Amazon (AMZN) is taking steps to control how artificial intelligence shopping tools interact with its e-commerce platform, according to The Information. In recent weeks, the company updated its robots.txt file — which are the instructions websites use to tell automated crawlers what they can or cannot access — to block new AI agents from Google (GOOGL). This follows earlier restrictions that the firm placed on bots from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic’s Claude. Because of these changes, Amazon product pages no longer appear in some AI‑powered search results. The move also suggests that Amazon wants to protect its $56 billion advertising business.
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These changes come as AI shopping tools that can browse the web, recommend products, and even complete purchases automatically for users become more common. However, while Amazon is trying to block such agents, other retailers are taking a different approach. For example, Shopify (SHOP), which earns most of its revenue from merchant payment processing rather than advertising, is more open to partnerships. Indeed, its policy mainly protects checkout pages, and requires AI companies to use Shop Pay so that humans can review and approve purchases.
Separately, Walmart (WMT) is going in yet another direction by not blocking AI agents at all. Instead, it is building its own AI tools to expand its e‑commerce business, which currently makes up less than 20% of total sales. In addition, Walmart recently launched a chatbot called Sparky, which will eventually be able to make purchases and handle recurring orders, such as weekly groceries. Executives say that they want to keep Walmart’s technology open to partnerships as AI evolves.
What Is the Price Target for AMZN Stock?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on Amazon stock based on 44 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months. Furthermore, the average AMZN stock price target of $259.76 per share implies 10.4% upside potential from current levels.
