Amazon wants to take control of information about virtually every product in the world. Products the company sells, along with products it will never even offer itself. The project is called World Product Graph. Behind it lies the vision of a shopping world where nobody has any reason to leave Amazon anymore. Not even to do their own independent research. The company wants to answer customers' questions before they even think about looking for answers somewhere else. Convenience becomes the friendly packaging for an enormous grab for power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An internal document describes how Amazon intends to gather information from other manufacturers and retailers. Brands would continuously supply their product data, while websites belonging to other retailers would be systematically crawled. Whether Amazon would need permission in every case remains unclear. According to the document, Coca-Cola and Bayer are already among the participating companies. Talks with Procter & Gamble reportedly took place at the highest executive level. Vice President Robert Tekiela is responsible for the project. Amazon is already reassigning employees internally to work on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The document lists October 1, 2027, as a possible launch date. That date is not binding. The draft is part of Amazon's internal planning process, in which new business ideas are initially described in the form of a fictional press release accompanied by questions and answers. The company says such documents are often outdated and don't necessarily reflect its current plans. The project could be modified or abandoned entirely. Quite an elaborate vision of what customer freedom might look like in the future, all within a single web address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The financial motives are unmistakable. According to a 2025 study, 57 percent of consumers begin researching products on Google, compared with just 16 percent on Amazon. Once shoppers know exactly what they want to buy, those numbers change. At that point, 41 percent start their searches on Amazon, 23 percent on Google, and 18 percent on Walmart. Amazon therefore wants to control the very moment when a need turns into a desire to buy something. Ideally, the decision should take shape in the same place where the payment will eventually be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ironically, Amazon's own artificial intelligence provides another reason for the project. According to the internal document, its shopping assistant Rufus, now marketed under the name \"Alexa for Shopping,\" frequently gives factually incorrect or incomplete answers. Many customers lack the expertise to recognize those mistakes in the first place. Around 83 million searches every week also generate substantial costs. A more comprehensive collection of product data could make it possible to use cheaper AI models. Amazon disputes parts of this account. The usage figures are outdated, it says, and global accuracy has now reached approximately 97 percent. CEO Andy Jassy says more than 400 million people have used the shopping assistant over the course of a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even more troubling for Amazon is the prospect of independent AI shopping agents. Meta's Muse attracted more than ten million users in the United States and Canada after launching in September. Amazon blocked it from its retail website that same month. A lawsuit against Perplexity over similar access is still ongoing. Musk's shopping agent was also blocked. Musk subsequently floated the idea of creating a competitor to Amazon. A major American bank considers Muse a potential contender for one of the most widely used AI applications since ChatGPT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jassy recently downplayed the threat. So far, few people were shopping this way, he said, and the advertising business had barely been affected. Internally, however, concerns are growing that autonomous shopping agents could direct customers to other retailers. They might find better information or cheaper products there. World Product Graph could prevent those unwanted excursions. Amazon's existing services, \"Buy for Me\" and \"Shop Direct,\" already facilitate purchases from outside retailers. In the future, even the road to a competitor could lead straight through Amazon. The retailer would become the gatekeeper of a marketplace whose doors don't even belong to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the shoppers? Many of them also need to finally ask themselves how much longer they're willing to support these business practices with their own money. As long as virtually every expansion of corporate power is rewarded with more orders, these practices will become business as usual. Responsibility doesn't end at the virtual checkout. Convenience has long since become one of the great problems of our time. It starts with shopping and extends all the way to how we treat human rights. Paying attention takes effort, and standing up against something sometimes means giving up a personal advantage. So people look the other way as long as their own packages arrive on time. Only when the consequences show up on their own doorstep does all the whining begin. Yet getting used to questionable conditions usually starts in a completely ordinary way. With a click. And the comforting certainty that you personally don't have to change a thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n