Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and Walmart's Sparky assistant gave inconsistent answers about which products are made in the United States, according to a report published July 30, 2026, by the Center for Law and the Economy, a policy research group co-founded by former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan.

The report found that when researchers asked Alexa to identify items such as boots or fly-fishing reels that were "made in the USA," the assistant said it lacked access to that information. A minor change in phrasing - asking for products "in the USA" rather than "made in the USA" - produced a working list of American-origin items. The Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute separately reproduced the same pattern, according to WSJ.

Walmart's Sparky agent showed a similar inconsistency. The assistant initially declined a request from the WSJ Leadership Institute to evaluate the reliability of "Made in USA" claims attached to products in an online shopping cart, according to the Journal's reporting. Sparky later agreed to complete a nearly identical task, ranking the same products on a scale running from "high confidence" to "low confidence/likely not U.S. made" once the prompt was reworded.

What the report found

Erie Meyer, a senior fellow at the Center for Law and the Economy and a co-author of the report, said fuller deployment of the agents' existing capabilities could help shoppers make better-informed purchasing decisions, according to the Journal. Meyer previously served as the FTC's chief technologist and director of policy planning during Khan's tenure leading the agency.

Meyer's central question, as described in the Journal's account, is whether Amazon and Walmart's online marketplaces face the same country-of-origin standards that apply to other retailers. That framing places the report inside a broader debate over how conversational commerce interfaces handle claims that were traditionally verified through printed labels or point-of-sale disclosures.

The report also documented a contrasting pattern: when asked for items designated "Made in China," Alexa readily supplied lists, according to the Journal. The two platforms, per the report, host numerous listings with misleading or contradictory "Made in USA" claims, including instances where a single product carried both domestic and imported designations simultaneously. One specific case the report described involved Alexa itself acknowledging that Amazon had inaccurately labeled a batch of T-shirts as U.S.-made within a product comparison chart, according to the Journal's summary of the findings.

How the bots explained the gap

Sparky's own responses, quoted in the Journal's reporting, pointed to caution rather than a hard technical limitation as the likely source of the inconsistency. "If I've said in a past conversation that I can't do that, that was overly cautious," the assistant told the WSJ Leadership Institute in a chat session reproduced by the Journal. It continued: "I can offer a reasoned assessment based on product title claims, brand reputation and product category norms - I just can't verify them with certainty, which is why I always recommend checking the Specifications section on each product page for the official country of origin."

That explanation suggests the assistants are not entirely blocked from discussing origin claims but instead default to refusal in some conversational framings and cooperation in others - a distinction that matters for consumers who may not think to rephrase a declined request.

Company responses

Amazon disputed the report's conclusions. In a statement quoted by the Journal, the company said: "We strive to provide customers with detailed information about products in our store, including where they are made when that information is provided to us by manufacturers or third-party sellers. The suggestion that we intentionally withhold country-of-origin information from customers is incorrect. Country-of-origin information, when available, is currently displayed on product detail pages, and we're continually working to improve Alexa for Shopping's ability to accurately provide this information to make it even more accessible for customers."

Walmart did not respond to requests for comment from the Journal at the time of publication.

The FTC declined to comment on the report, according to the Journal.

Regulatory backdrop

The findings arrive as the FTC intensifies enforcement against businesses that misrepresent products as American-made. On July 8, 2025, the Commission sent warning letters to Amazon and Walmart stating that third-party sellers on their platforms appeared to be making deceptive "Made in USA" claims, according to a PPC Land report on the letters. Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, signed both letters, which requested that Amazon and Walmart "monitor, identify, and take corrective action against third-party sellers who make false or misleading 'Made in USA' claims" on their marketplaces. The same enforcement round warned four additional companies directly: flagpole retailer Americana Liberty, footwear maker Oak Street Manufacturing LLC, football equipment company Pro Sports Group LLC, and personal care manufacturer USA Big Mountain Paper Inc. Those letters explicitly stated they did not reflect any assessment of whether Amazon or Walmart themselves had violated the FTC Act or the Made in USA Labeling Rule.

President Trump signed an executive order on March 26, 2026, titled "Ensuring Truthful Advertising of Products Claiming to be Made in America," which directs the FTC chair to prioritize enforcement against sellers and manufacturers that falsely claim American origin, according to a White House fact sheet. The order also instructs agencies with country-of-origin oversight to consider new regulations promoting voluntary labeling standards, and it requires agencies managing federal procurement contracts to periodically verify origin claims on products purchased by the government. WSJ Leadership Institute reporter Patrick Coffee described the order as one that "promised to go after more companies and also suggested that maybe the FTC needs to force platforms like Amazon to set up systems for vetting origin claims."

Khan and Columbia University law professor Lev Menand formed the Center for Law and the Economy earlier in 2026, according to the Journal. Before her FTC chairmanship, which began after former President Biden appointed her in 2021, Khan was known primarily for a law review article arguing for stricter antitrust enforcement against companies including Amazon. The FTC under Khan sued Amazon in 2023, alleging the company operates an illegal monopoly that keeps prices elevated and harms competitors; that case remains ongoing, according to the Journal.

The Made in USA report lands roughly three weeks after the FTC separately reached a settlement with Amazon over an unrelated identity-theft records dispute. That case, which PPC Land reported resulted in a 2.25 million dollar civil penalty and a ten-year injunction, stemmed from allegations that Amazon failed to provide fraud victims with records showing how identity theft occurred on its platform, in violation of a federal law requiring such records within 30 days of a written request. That same PPC Land report noted that the FTC's FY 2026-2030 Strategic Plan, published April 3, 2026, explicitly references an ongoing Amazon and Google advertising-pricing probe as part of the backdrop informing the agency's enforcement priorities.

Why this matters for marketers

For brand managers and advertisers who have invested in domestic manufacturing, the report's findings complicate a positioning strategy that has gained commercial relevance since Trump's re-election. According to the Journal, several major companies - including Apple, Meta and Amazon - publicly committed to expanding U.S. manufacturing after Trump returned to office, while retailers such as Ford and Walmart launched marketing campaigns emphasizing domestic employment and production.

That marketing push has not gone unchallenged. The Journal noted that a wave of new lawsuits now alleges some popular brands exploited consumer interest in domestic-made goods to improperly boost sales or justify premium pricing. Genuine "Made in USA" manufacturers, meanwhile, face a structural disadvantage: they typically charge more than competitors whose country-of-origin claims are harder to verify, according to the Journal's reporting. Coffee, describing the dynamic to the Journal, said companies that actually manufacture everything domestically are "almost at a disadvantage in a market flooded with fakers, especially since they have to charge higher prices," calling that cost gap the underlying reason some companies make false claims in the first place.

The FTC's July 2025 warning letters predate a case PPC Land covered the following day: a North Dakota pasta company, Three Farm Daughters, scaled from 38 regional retail stores to distribution across all 50 states using Amazon's Fulfillment by Amazon service and Seller Central tools, according to PPC Land's coverage of the July 18, 2025 announcement. That case illustrates the kind of vertically integrated domestic producer Meyer's report suggests could benefit most from clearer origin-claim verification: a company growing its own wheat, processing it domestically, and shipping directly from American facilities, with a traceable supply chain that leaves little room for the kind of ambiguity the Center for Law and the Economy's report describes in Alexa's and Sparky's handling of broader marketplace queries.

The report's implications extend into a question PPC Land has tracked closely across 2026: how AI shopping assistants mediate information that used to reach consumers directly through packaging, store signage or retailer disclosures. Amazon's Alexa for Shopping, which merged the company's Rufus and Alexa+ systems into a single assistant, launched on May 13, 2026, and has become central to how the company frames its consumer-facing AI strategy. Walmart's Sparky, meanwhile, has been positioned by the company as a tool that increases basket sizes; Walmart US chief executive David Guggina has said Sparky users spend approximately 35 percent more per order than other shoppers.

Both companies' broader AI agent strategies sit inside separate regulatory and legal disputes that could shape how origin-claim data eventually gets surfaced to consumers. Amazon's ongoing federal court fight with Perplexity AI over the Comet browser's shopping agent, for instance, centers on Amazon's insistence that AI agents identify themselves distinctly from human browser traffic - a control Amazon has framed as protective of its marketplace but which also determines how third-party AI tools might independently verify or contest origin claims Amazon's own systems present. Amazon formalized an Agent Policy requiring AI agents to self-identify, which took effect March 4, 2026.

The report does not allege that either company is legally required to build country-of-origin verification into its AI assistants. But Meyer's framing - questioning whether marketplace operators face the same standards as other retailers - points toward a regulatory gap that FTC officials and lawmakers have signaled interest in closing. Advertisers relying on "Made in USA" claims as a differentiator may find that general-purpose AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini answer such queries more readily than the shopping-specific agents built by Amazon and Walmart, since those general models are not constrained by the same commercial incentives around price-sensitive origin claims.

Timeline

  • 2021 - Former President Biden appoints Lina Khan to lead the FTC.
  • 2023 - The FTC under Khan sues Amazon, alleging illegal monopoly practices; the case remains ongoing.
  • February 1, 2024 - Amazon unveils Rufus, its conversational AI shopping assistant, in beta.
  • July 8, 2025 - The FTC sends warning letters to Amazon, Walmart, and four manufacturers over false "Made in USA" claims.
  • July 18, 2025 - PPC Land reports that North Dakota pasta maker Three Farm Daughters scaled to national distribution across all 50 states using Amazon's small-business tools.
  • October 2025 - Walmart Connect announces it tested advertising formats within the Sparky agent for the first time.
  • November 4, 2025 - Amazon sues Perplexity AI over the Comet browser's alleged unauthorized access to Amazon's marketplace.
  • January 6, 2026 - Walmart Connect launches an AI advertising assistant alongside expanded Sparky integration.
  • February 7, 2026 - Amazon reports that Rufus, its predecessor shopping assistant, drove nearly 12 billion dollars in incremental annualized sales during 2025.
  • March 4, 2026 - Amazon's Agent Policy, requiring AI agents to self-identify, takes effect.
  • March 9, 2026 - A federal court grants Amazon's preliminary injunction blocking Perplexity's Comet agents from Amazon's password-protected accounts.
  • March 26, 2026 - President Trump signs an executive order directing the FTC to prioritize enforcement against false "Made in America" claims.
  • April 3, 2026 - The FTC publishes its FY 2026-2030 Strategic Plan, referencing an ongoing Amazon and Google advertising-pricing probe.
  • May 13, 2026 - Amazon launches Alexa for Shopping, merging Rufus and Alexa+ into a unified assistant.
  • Earlier in 2026 - Lina Khan and Columbia law professor Lev Menand form the Center for Law and the Economy.
  • 3 weeks before this report (early July 2026) - The FTC fines Amazon 2.25 million dollars over an unrelated identity-theft records dispute.
  • July 30, 2026 - The Center for Law and the Economy publishes its report on Alexa and Sparky's handling of "Made in USA" queries; the Wall Street Journal reports the findings the same day.

Summary

Who: The Center for Law and the Economy, a policy research group co-founded by former FTC chair Lina Khan and Columbia law professor Lev Menand, authored the report. Erie Meyer, a senior fellow at the center and former FTC chief technologist, co-authored the findings. The Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute, through reporter Patrick Coffee, independently reproduced the described chatbot behaviors.

What: Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and Walmart's Sparky assistant gave inconsistent responses when asked to identify "made in USA" products, initially declining some requests before providing origin information when prompts were reworded slightly.

When: The report was published July 30, 2026. The underlying regulatory pressure traces back to FTC letters sent to Amazon and Walmart in the summer of 2025, followed by a presidential executive order signed March 26, 2026.

Where: The findings apply to Amazon's and Walmart's U.S. consumer-facing shopping platforms and their integrated AI assistants.

Why: The report raises questions about whether marketplace operators face the same country-of-origin verification standards as other retailers, at a time when the FTC has intensified enforcement against false American-made claims and when AI shopping assistants increasingly mediate the information consumers use to make purchasing decisions.