Artificial Intelligence

Amazon Lets You Text Alexa to Shop — No App, No Echo Needed

Amazon has started letting a small group of US customers text its Alexa for Shopping agent to search, compare and buy, weeks after blocking Meta's Muse from querying its site.

jajoy39

Nov 8, 2026 - 10:02

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An Amazon Echo smart speaker — Amazon now lets customers text Alexa to shop.

Amazon Lets You Text Alexa to Shop — No App, No Echo Needed

Amazon has started letting a small group of US customers text its Alexa AI agent to shop — no app and no Echo speaker required — just weeks after it blocked Meta's Muse from querying its site.

The feature, called Text Alexa, lets customers message Amazon's Alexa for Shopping agent directly over text. Users can type natural-language requests to search for items, add products to their cart and buy, and can also send photos to find similar products. The agent can manage shopping lists, keep tabs on prices, search for items across the web, compare products and check order status.

Selected customers will receive a text asking them to enable the feature. Those invited accept the terms, link their phone number, and the contact appears in their messages as "Alexa Shopping." Customers who are not invited can join a waitlist, and Amazon says the option will expand to millions more customers in the coming weeks.

The move comes just before the holiday shopping season, and it follows Amazon's decision in September to block Muse, Meta's AI shopping agent, from querying Amazon's site. The message is clear: Amazon would rather build its own text-based shopping agent than let a rival's agent sit between shoppers and its store.

"Now with Alexa for Shopping, your personal shopping agent is just a text away," said Rajiv Mehta, vice president of conversational shopping at Amazon. The company said in its third-quarter release that Alexa for Shopping was used by more than 400 million customers in the last 12 months. The agent originally launched in May 2026.

A request started over text carries over to the Amazon Shopping app, Amazon.com and Alexa-enabled devices, so a shopper can start on their phone and finish on an Echo. Texting requires a personal Amazon account with a verified mobile number and a phone with RCS chats turned on — Google Fi on iPhone is not supported.

Prime membership is not required to text Alexa, though purchases still need approval before they go through. Reports have also noted that ads are served within the texting experience, giving Amazon another surface for sponsored results.