Who can text Alexa for Shopping right now?
Amazon is letting shoppers text Alexa for Shopping, its AI shopping agent, and buy products without opening its app or website. The company said Friday that the feature is rolling out to a small group of invited U.S. customers, with millions more to get access in the coming weeks.
Can shoppers buy products by texting Alexa?
Customers who opt in get a new contact called “Alexa Shopping.” They can text a plain request, such as a need for more dog food, or send a photo of a recipe or an outfit they like. The agent texts back with options. It buys only with the customer’s approval, or on its own once a price hits a target the customer has set.
The texting feature also handles several everyday chores. The agent can track price drops, reorder past purchases and check on packages. Amazon says that a conversation started by text will carry over to its app, its website and Alexa devices, so a shopper can pick up where they left off on another screen.
Amazon describes the product as a way to shop in the moments when people already reach for their phones. Rajiv Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of conversational shopping, put it this way: “Now with Alexa for Shopping, your personal shopping agent is just a text away.”
Amazon’s announcement also said that the agent shows a product image before asking whether the shopper wants to buy it. It remembers personal preferences over time, so a shopper who often asks for vegan options will see them reflected in future recommendations.
Will sponsored products appear in Alexa text chats?
The text thread is also a new place for advertising. Sponsored products can appear among the options the agent sends back. Amazon is not charging advertisers for that placement yet, according to Digiday, which first reported the details. Purchases the agent completes on its own carry no ads. Amazon made more than $68 billion from advertising in 2025, and the company has been steadily expanding the places where brands can reach shoppers.
Alexa for Shopping launched in May. Amazon says more than 400 million customers used it in the past year. The company has been protective of the tool. In September, Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse agent from shopping its site. Last week, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy said he expects Alexa for Shopping to become the main agent people use to buy from Amazon.
Texting is a crowded new front. OpenAI added texting to Dot, its personal agent, last month. DoorDash began letting customers order food by text in September, GeekWire reported. DoorDash’s system lets users get dish recommendations and place orders by texting its Ask DoorDash AI chatbot.
Amazon has not said how quickly the texting feature will reach all of its users beyond the initial invitations, and the company has not said how it plans to expand paid advertising inside the text thread. For now, the feature is limited to invited customers in the United States, and the pitch is simple: a shopper sends a message, and the agent handles the rest.
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