Amazon plans World Product Graph to index online shopping data
Amazon is reportedly planning a World Product Graph to catalog products sold across the internet, including items it does not sell, with a possible October 1, 2027 release date, according to Reuters.
Amazon has plans to build a vault of data on every product sold anywhere on the internet, including products Amazon does not sell, and make the information available through its own site, according to Reuters. The project, called the World Product Graph, is meant to make it less likely that shoppers leave Amazon for product research on Reddit or Google, and more likely that shoppers end up at Amazon even if they are searching for a product sold elsewhere. Amazon said draft documents may paint an incomplete picture and do not necessarily reflect its current plans.
What Amazon is trying to build
The World Product Graph is described as an effort to list details of everything for sale everywhere. Listing the details of everything for sale everywhere is meant to make Amazon more useful than Reddit for people and AI agents. Links to outside retailers' products have already started appearing on Amazon through the shop direct feature it launched last year.
AI shopping and cost
Amazon also has its own AI shopping assistant, Alexa for Shopping, previously called Rufus. The World Product Graph project would also be aimed at fixing issues with the AI by providing it more data. According to Reuters, an internal Amazon document says "Many Rufus answers are factually wrong or incomplete" and running users' Amazon searches with the AI is expensive. Adding more data is reportedly supposed to make the system more accurate and able to use cheaper models.
Whether it will ship
The internal document reportedly says the project depends on discovering how brands organize their products on their own websites, which could involve Amazon crawling other retailers' sites. Reuters says it is unclear if or when this plan may be implemented, but said the document included an October 1, 2027 release date. Amazon said in a statement to Reuters that draft, outdated documents often paint an incomplete picture and the existence of a brainstorming document does not necessarily reflect current plans.
Sources: The Verge
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