Amazon to Shut Down Sellers for Using Some AI Tools

This This is the Billiondollar Sellers podcast, your go-to source for cutting edge strategies and success stories from the world of Amazon and e-commerce. Buckle up and get ready to take your Amazon business to new heights. Don't forget to subscribe to the Billiondoll Sellers Newsletter. Welcome your host. Welcome your host, Kevin King. >> Hey everyone, welcome to the Billiondoll Sellers podcast. I'm your host, Kevin King, and today is Monday, February 23rd, 2026. We've got a big show today, including Amazon's new AI policy that could get sellers shut down, some eye-opening stats on who's really winning US e-commerce, and why AI is influencing way more purchases than your analytics will ever show. But first, a quick announcement. This April, I'm putting together something big in Nashville. It's called Ecom Mastery AI running April 8th through 12th. We've got more than 100 creators, 41 speakers, and 500 sellers all in one room. Those 41 speakers are covering everything from AI powered selling and multi- channelannel domination across Amazon, Shopify, Tik Tok, Walmart, and YouTube to advanced PPC strategies for seven, eight figure sellers. You'll learn product launch tactics, brand building, and protection, plus the email, UGC, and influencer playbooks that most sellers are leaving on the table. We're also getting into AI avatars and conversational commerce, so you can be the answer when Rufus Cosmo and other AI assistants recommend products. And for those thinking about the bigger picture, there's deep dives on e-commerce finance, exit strategy, and how to scale from$1 million to$10 million with smarter systems, not more hours, networking parties, expert roundts, and for the first time ever at any e-commerce event, over a 100 top content creators will be on site all three days. They'll be meeting sellers face to face shooting live videos and creating content for your products and brand on the spot. Here's a pro tip. Bring product samples to Masheville. Some will be featured on camera during live broadcasts and others will go home with creators who can start driving sales immediately. You can save 20% with coupon code Nashville and has a link in the show notes. All right, here's your Stump Bezos question for today. 59% of marketers say that email is their highest ROI channel. So, what percent of all online orders can be attributed to email marketing? Think it through and I'll give you the answer at the end of the show. First up, let's start the show with a number worth sitting with. According to Marketplace Pulse, Amazon and Shopify together now account for roughly 50% of all US e-commerce. That's about $440 billion and $168 billion respectively out of a $1.2 trillion market. That's up from 43% just 4 years ago. And the acceleration has been dramatic over the last 2 years. Here's what's interesting. Shopify are publicly claiming 14% market share, up from 12% last year. And that's a big deal. And Shopify isn't a shopping destination. Nobody goes to Shopify to buy something. It's infrastructure powering millions of independent storefronts. The fact they're now framing themselves in market share terms tells you how massive direct to consumer has become as a channel. Shopify's global GMV is now 66% the size of Amazon's entire third party marketplace. This reinforces what we've been saying is the theme of Ecom Mastery AI in Nashville this April. The smartest Amazon sellers aren't choosing between Amazon and DTC. They're doing both. Amazon owns the customer relationship on its platform, but Shopify lets you own yours. Two different models, both growing, and together they're squeezing everyone else. Plus, the other half of US e-commerce is getting crowded and scrappy. Walmart's marketplace is still relatively small compared to Amazon, about $80 billion in GMV. eBay found its lane with collectors and enthusiasts at about $39 billion. Tik Tok Shop went over $15 billion in its second full year. Real money, but still tiny compared to the leaders. Teu and Shane lost their dimminimous shipping advantage. Target's marketplace has really never gotten off the ground. US e-commerce has organized itself around two models. Amazon centralized marketplace and Shopify's decentralized infrastructure. If you're not building ideally on both of these, you're fighting for scraps in an increasingly contested other half. Now, let's talk social shopping for a second. When US adults were asked which social media platform they're most likely to shop from, Instagram led at about 37%. Tik Tok came in second at around 30%. Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube were all in the low single digits and about 21% said they don't shop on social at all. So roughly 80% of US adults are open to shopping on social platforms. And Instagram and Tik Tok dominate that behavior. All right. Now for today's tool of the day, and this one's important. Today's feature is not about a tool. itself, but a warning to be aware of when choosing the tools you use on Amazon. Amazon just updated the business solutions agreement with a brand new section 19 effective March 4th, 2026 and added a brand new AI agent policy. Amazon now calls your software an agent if it does something on your behalf on their platform. That agent must identify itself as automated, not pretend to be a human, and not bypass captures or dodge rate limits and blocks. Automation is allowed. Hiding it isn't. repricers, monitoring tools, research tools, browser extensions, VA dashboards, agencies logging in, anything that touches Amazon on your behalf counts. Here's the key part. Your account, your problem. The account is yours. What touches it is your responsibility. Not the vendors, the agencies, or the developers. Yours. Amazon doesn't have to prove that you built the tool or that you knew how it worked. If it's tied to your account, you own the exposure. That's why this update matters. even when you say you're just using a tool. Amazon also spelled out that you can't use their materials or services to build or improve an AI or any machine learning models and they tighten the rules around data mining and reverse engineering. Tools that rely on heavy scraping or extraction are now in a much smaller gray zone. The contract removes the ambiguity and now that the rule is clearly written, Amazon doesn't need to argue about it. So, what should you do? Well, you don't need to panic. You don't need to rip out your stack, but you do need to stop making assumptions. Ask your tool providers three questions. First, how does the tool access Amazon? Is it via official APIs or browser automation? Second, does it run while you're logged in? And third, does it ever bypass captures, limits, or try to look human? If they can't answer clearly, that's your answer. If they say, "Don't worry, we're compliant, but can't explain how," treat that as a signal. Next up, something that changes how you think about AI's role in shopping. Ky Masters dropped an important piece last week that every seller needs to understand. We all keep hearing that less than 1% of website traffic comes from AI referrals, but that number is basically meaningless. Here's what's actually happening. Shoppers are using Chat GPT and other AI tools to decide what to buy before they ever visit Amazon, Walmart, or any retailer. They photograph their room and ask Chad GPT for furniture ideas. They ask which brand of protein snack to grab off the shelf, then they go buy it. The retailer sees zero browsing history, zero search data, zero upperfunnel signals. It just looks like a direct purchase. Malt Landwear Peak AI calls this dark search. It's the AI version of dark social. One company found that only 1% of clicks came from Chat GPT, but 20% of new leads said they discovered the brand through the platform. The dashboards can't see it, but the influence is massive. assistance influence more than they transact. Rufus may tag a tiny share of Amazon's GMBB directly, but it's quietly reshaping how shoppers decide and convert. The real disruption isn't agentic checkout inside Chad GPT. That's still clunky. It's that the discovery and consideration phases where shoppers decide what to buy and which brand are migrating to AI tools. If your brand isn't showing up in LLM recommendations, you're losing sales you'll never even know about. Dragonfish can help with that. And there's a link in the show notes. About 10% of product discover is already happening via LLMs. And watch this space. Target Rondell is already testing ads inside Chad GPT where brands and retailers co- bid together. That's likely the future of retail media. If you're waiting for AI traffic to clearly show up in your analytics before you act, you're already behind. Now, if you want to reach page one on Amazon, here's a strategy the top brands are using. sending free products to micro influencers at scale. Stack influence automates the entire process. You can run thousands of collaborations per month. Boost your Amazon ranking, generate UGC, and grow your recurring revenue like never before. Brands like Magic Spoon, Unilver, and Mary Ruth Organics have used Stack Influence to hit number one page positioning and increase their monthly revenue by as much as 13 times in just 2 months. Here's the model. You pay influencers only with products, so there's no negotiating fees. You get increased external traffic driving Amazon sales and full rights to all the image and video content they create. And it's 100% automated, so you're not lifting a finger to manage collabs at scale. Look at Blue Ant. After raising investment on Shark Tank, it turned to Stack Influence to boost their Amazon sales and became a top selling listing using micro influencer marketing. The result, a 13 times ROI. If you want to increase your Amazon rankings for targeted keywords and multiply your organic revenue in 2026, check out Stack Influence. Sign up this month and get 10% off. I'll drop a link in the description. Speaking of discovery, here's another channel to watch. Reddit just announced they're testing a new AI powered shopping feature directly in search results. When users search for product recommendations like best noise cancelling headphones, they'll now see interactive product carousels with pricing, images, and direct buy links, all pulled from real Reddit conversations. Right now, it's a small US test limited to consumer electronics, but the direction is clear. Reddit is turning the millions of authentic product conversations happening on its platform into a shoppable experience. It's quietly become one of the most influential platforms in product discovery. Google already prioritizes Reddit results in search and you've probably seen those Reddit queries dominating SERs. Now, Reddit itself is cutting out the middleman by keeping shoppers on platform and connecting them directly to retailers. This is another signal that the space where people discover and research products is fragmenting fast. And it's not just Amazon search, Google, Tik Tok, and chat GPT shopping anymore. Reddit is entering the chat. Literally, the platform's superpower is authentic user generated recommendations, which carry enormous trust with buyers. If you're not thinking about your brand's presence and reputation on Reddit, you're missing a channel that increasingly influences purchase decisions before shoppers ever hit Amazon. Between Google's AI overviews pulling Reddit content, ChatGpt citing Reddit threads, and now Reddit building its own native shopping experience, the communities talking about your products are becoming the storefront. Keep this on your radar. What starts as a small electronics test today becomes a full-blown commerce platform tomorrow. Before we wrap up, here are a few more hot picks. Amazon has dethroned Walmart as the world's biggest company by sales. Tik Tok Shop has halted its plan to make sellers use Tik Tok's fulfillment. There's a great breakdown comparing the real cost of selling on Amazon, Walmart, and Tik Tok Shop. And Walmart's ad business grew 46% to $6.4 billion in 2025. Links to all these stories are in the show notes. And here's your parting shot for today from Steve Jobs. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And remember that Stump Bezos question I asked at the beginning. The answer is 23%. 23% of all online orders can be attributed to email marketing. That's a huge number for a channel most sellers overlook. That's all for today, folks. Have a great week and I'll see you again on Thursday. This is Kevin King signing off from the Billiondollar Sellers podcast.