Amazon is building a catalogue of everything sold on the internet, according to Reuters. The project is called the World Product Graph. It would cover products Amazon does not sell and make that data searchable on Amazon’s own site.
The first goal is keeping shoppers from leaving. Many people start product research on Reddit or Google today. Amazon wants those searches to end on its pages instead of a competitor’s.
AI agents are the second audience. If Amazon holds the largest pile of shopping data, agents may lean on its index first. That would send bot-driven shoppers to Amazon even when the product lives elsewhere.
Parts of the idea already exist. Amazon launched a shop direct feature last year that links to outside retailers. The company also runs Alexa for Shopping, the assistant formerly known as Rufus.
Internal documents suggest the current assistant struggles. Reuters reports that one document says many Rufus answers are factually wrong or incomplete. Running AI searches is also expensive for Amazon. More product data is meant to fix both problems, improving accuracy while allowing cheaper models.
Shipping is not guaranteed. The plan depends on learning how brands organize products on their own websites. That likely means crawling other retailers at scale. Reuters says the document carried an October 1st, 2027 release date but could not confirm whether the project will happen.
Amazon pushed back on the reporting. A spokesperson told Reuters that draft, outdated documents often paint an incomplete picture. The company said a brainstorming document does not necessarily reflect current plans.
The strategy carries obvious risk. Retailers rarely welcome a competitor indexing their catalogues. Regulators in Europe have already shown interest in how large platforms rank and reuse rival listings.
For shoppers, the upside is better answers and fewer dead ends. For Amazon, the prize is becoming the default layer between a question and a purchase, whether a person or an agent asks it.
Source: The Verge — Amazon has a plan to index the world’s online shopping data
Related on Mylistingo: ChatGPT adds verified business agents that speak for brands and United blocks AI agents from booking flights.
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