Amazon opens its search to outside stores as bots block AI shoppers

The commerce web spent Thursday, November 5, rearranging its doors. Amazon, which has spent the year suing and blocking outside shopping agents on its own site, opened a free portal that lets retailers who do not sell on Amazon put their products into its search results. A conversion agency published an audit showing that the bot protection software retailers bought to keep scrapers out is also turning away the AI shopping agents they say they welcome. Google wired plumbers and electricians into AI Mode so that a search can end in a booking. And millions of AI-written pages built by Meta from public Facebook posts were found ranking in Google, prompting a well-known SEO consultant to call them scaled content abuse. Each of these moves is about the same question: who is allowed into whose index, and on what terms. The answers this week were contradictory, and the contradictions are where the money is.

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Amazon lets outside stores into its search

PPC Land reported that Amazon's new portal lets any eligible store list in its search for free. On November 4, Amazon launched the Shop Direct Merchant Workspace, a self-service portal where eligible online retailers that do not sell on Amazon can register, submit product feeds and appear in US Amazon search results and in Alexa for Shopping. Merchants connect through Feedonomics, Salsify, CEDCommerce or VersaFeed, the last of them new since March, or directly through the Selling Partner API. Sign-up has three steps: create an account, verify the website, share the catalog. Merchants keep control of pricing, inventory, fulfilment and customer service. "There are no fees to participate in Shop Direct, and merchants can opt out at any time," Amazon said.

"Shop Direct makes it simple for merchants to have their selection discovered by Amazon customers," said Amanda Doerr, vice president of Core Shopping at Amazon. Shoppers see a "Shop Direct" label and either click through to the merchant's site or use Buy for Me, where Amazon's AI completes the purchase on the merchant's site. Amazon says "tens of millions" of customers discover "hundreds of millions" of products this way, without defining either term; in March it cited more than 100 million products from over 400,000 merchants. Eligibility criteria are not published, and the developer documentation reportedly specifies the Google product data feed format and limits Shop Direct to the US.

The irony was not lost on PPC Land. Independent brands reported unauthorised listings scraped from their websites earlier in 2026, and Amazon has restricted outside agents on its own store, including litigation against Perplexity and blocking Meta's Muse in September. Amazon wants to be the agent that shops other people's stores while keeping other agents out of its own. How Shop Direct listings rank against paying sellers, whether they can carry ads and how they are measured were all left unanswered.

The agents meet locked doors

The retailers on the other side of that transaction are not ready. PPC Land reported that bot protection blocks Blend's AI shopping agent at 29 of 200 retailers. Blend Commerce, a conversion agency that works with Shopify merchants, sent an automated shopping agent to 200 UK and US retailers across 20 sectors between September 8 and 15, scoring each out of 100 on 17 checks grouped into four layers: reachable, discoverable, understandable and transactable. The average score was 65. Baby and nursery retailers led at 88; fashion came last at 49.

Twenty-nine retailers refused the agent on two attempts, among them Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy's, Tesco, Argos and Next. Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Anthropologie and JD Williams refused even requests for their robots.txt files and scored zero. Refusal rates were 20% for large retailers, 15% for mid-sized ones and 2.5% for emerging brands. Blend could read robots.txt for 24 of the refusing stores, and all 24 allowed the ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude crawlers, so Blend blames bot protection software rather than policy. "Most of these retailers have likely told the AI companies their agents are welcome," said Adam Pearce, Blend's co-founder and chief executive. The audit put it more bluntly: an agent that cannot load a product page cannot recommend what is on it.

Even where agents got in, the data was thin. Product data was readable at 171 stores, but only 18% included a GTIN, 22% shipping details and 20% a returns policy. Of 38 retailers with a live agent checkout endpoint, 37 ran on Shopify, and Shopify stores averaged 91 against 59 for everyone else. Blend acknowledged its commercial interest in that finding.

Identity is the other bottleneck. PPC Land reported that 80% of firms are slower than planned on AI features, an Okta survey finds. Gareth Davies, chief product officer of Okta's Auth0 business, published the analysis on November 4, drawing on a Statista poll of 5,250 consumers in seven countries and a Rep Data survey of 910 developers and senior leaders. The headline rests on one question: only 20.3% said their organisation moves at its target pace on AI. Only 22.4% of organisations building agents give them unique, tightly scoped, time-limited credentials. Among consumers, 6% want fully autonomous AI, and unconditional trust sits at or below 9% for all 11 actions tested, though approval-first or reversible options push willingness above 50% for nine of them. "For years, security teams focused on keeping bots out. Now, we have to let the good ones in," Davies wrote. PPC Land noted that the data is self-reported and that Okta sells the category it is promoting.

Google books the plumber

Google, meanwhile, is turning search results into transactions. Barry Schwartz reported at 7:31 Eastern that Google AI Mode now integrates with home services booking. People can research local providers and book from inside AI Mode, with launch partners Angi, Thumbtack, Housecall Pro and Jobber, and ServiceTitan coming. The feature is US only. Robby Stein of Google announced it on X on November 4 with a story about a plumbing emergency at home. "Pulled up AI Mode and just described my situation," he wrote, adding that the tool compared local pricing and ratings before he booked a plumber. "Today, we're making it even easier to research & book home services with direct links in AI Mode," Stein said. For the lead generation businesses that have long sold home services clicks, a booking that starts and ends inside Google's answer is a change of position in the funnel.

Car dealers may be next. Schwartz reported that Google added a section on car dealership inventory, in limited availability, to its Business Profiles help document, absent from a Wayback Machine copy dated October 12. "In a new feature pilot, Google displays available sales inventory on dealership Business Profiles," the document says. Pilot partners manage the listings under Edit Profile through a "Cars for Sale" option, choosing whether to show vehicles and which data providers to use, and dealers can apply through an interest form. Schwartz noted that the pilot looks a great deal like earlier local car listings that Google has tried before, and that it is distinct from sponsored vehicle ads.

People are being indexed too. Schwartz reported that Google Search Profiles were spotted adding LinkedIn alongside YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X. Damien Andell spotted it on November 4 and said: "It's added automatically; it's not yet possible to add it manually via the search profile claim." Schwartz called LinkedIn "really a good one for creators, professional creators, to have."

Facebook's AI answers flood Google

The most striking index story of the day came from Meta. Schwartz reported that AI-generated Facebook Answers pages, six million of them, are being called Google scaled content abuse. The pages sit in a facebook.com/fb-answers/ directory, and each is an AI summary of a topic built from public posts by individuals and pages. Saul Westbrook of Peripheral Creative wrote: "In June 2026, I noticed that Meta had quietly indexed millions of AI-generated Facebook pages." Glenn Gabe said Facebook began populating the directory in July and added: "Now there are 6M+ urls indexed there and the directory ranks for millions of queries." Gabe showed the pages cited in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini, and called the practice scaled content abuse, a category Google's spam policies prohibit. Schwartz relayed unconfirmed rumours that Instagram is doing something similar and said he suspected the pages would not stay indexed for long.

The case tests whether Google's spam rules apply with equal force to one of the largest sites on the web. It also shows how Meta is building an audience for answers outside its own apps, using the posts of its own users as raw material.

Google's indexing system has its own exceptions. Schwartz reported that Google can temporarily protect important URLs from being deindexed. Gary Illyes explained on LinkedIn why the VLC media player website had lost its favicon in results: the site had served HTTP 418, the "I'm a teapot" code, which Google treats like any other client error. Because VLC is so important, Search chose to "temporarily protect the URL from falling out of the index right away," but with no content to read, "we have nothing left to show: no snippet, no favicon, no nothing," Illyes wrote. The site was returning normal pages again, so the problem should clear.

Google Ads adds reports and tests colours

The advertising side of Google moved in smaller steps. Schwartz reported that Performance Max channel report definitions are coming to Search and Shopping. Google's help document now says the channel definitions shown in Performance Max and Demand Gen reports "will be available for standard Search and Shopping reports in 2027." Hana Kobzova of PPC News Feed, who spotted the change, also flagged that a legacy "x" placement code is being replaced by dedicated codes for Maps, Gmail and Discover, which matters to anyone filtering traffic in analytics or CRM tools.

PPC News Feed reported that an Asset activity page appeared in Google Ads in beta, shared by CJ Lopez. Insights refresh weekly and can be filtered by featured items, asset performance, asset diversity, competitor performance and industry trends. Sample cards suggested repair-specific headlines with a 12% higher clickthrough rate and pointed to an 89.3% rise in searches for energy-efficient home heating. The page shows weekly asset changes over roughly the past three months, and its highlights are generated with Google AI, with a disclaimer saying so.

PPC News Feed also reported that Google is testing blue website URLs in search ads, crediting Sachin Patel of Search Engine Watch. Sponsored results normally show the site name and URL in black. A colour change in the ad label is the kind of test that rarely gets announced and often affects click rates more than any bidding feature.

Brussels finds the ad black boxes still shut

The European Union's attempt to open the dominant ad platforms has not worked yet. PPC Land reported that an EU study finds the DMA has not opened Google, Meta and Amazon ad auction data. The 571-page study, commissioned by the European Commission's DG CNECT and prepared by the consultancy AWO, was posted to the EU Publications Office on October 29. It does not represent the Commission's official position. Its authors, Nick Botton, Lex Zard and Oana Goga, conducted 60 stakeholder interviews, including with Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, and ran a survey of 50 advertisers in six countries.

On pricing, advertisers split 48% to 48% on whether they receive enough information, and every publisher interviewed saw no improvement. On performance data, 76% of advertisers were satisfied with measurement tools, but only 58% receive raw log-level data, ranging from 82% for impressions to 18% for attribution. Only 48% of advertisers knew that the ad repositories required under the Digital Services Act existed. "They started using privacy as a reason not to share data," one advertiser said of Google Search reporting. Another, on automated campaign types, said: "The less restrictions there are, the more impressions." The study recommends implementing and delegated acts under the DMA, structural separation of buy-side and sell-side businesses, anonymised bid requests and an EU Ad Fraud Taskforce. It cites research finding that 30.9% of 14.5 million ads on Meta in the EU and UK linked to scams or malware. The authors acknowledged that their survey is not representative.

Privacy's bill arrives

In the United States, privacy is being enforced through the courts rather than the regulators. PPC Land reported that US companies face $1.4bn in web tracking settlements in 2026, Privado says. Privado AI's report, published October 5, projects that companies will pay more than $1.4bn this year to settle class actions over websites and apps that shared personal data without proper consent, 36% more than in 2025. The estimate rests on 116 publicly disclosed settlements between January 2025 and August 2026. Meta's ad tracker appears in 100 of them, and healthcare providers make up 64% of defendants. Most claims rely on the 1968 federal Wiretap Act and California's 1967 Invasion of Privacy Act, which allow private suits for fixed damages.

PPC Land's own analysis put the 2026 median settlement at $1.93m against a $6.7m average inflated by Google Assistant at $68m and Flo Health at $59.5m. California's SB 690, signed September 30, removes private suits under one section of the state law from January 1, 2027, but only three of the settlements involved that section. "Consent tools don't prove compliance," said Vaibhav Antil, Privado's chief executive. "But web- and app-based tracking claims are not going away," said Matthew Pearson, a privacy partner at Frankfurt Kurnit.

In Europe, the question is who enforces. PPC Land reported that Ireland faces UN concerns over the privacy regulator for Meta and Google. On November 4, the UN Special Rapporteurs Margaret Satterthwaite and Ana Brian Nougreres raised concerns from Geneva about how members of Ireland's Data Protection Commission are appointed and about Irish limits on third-party litigation funding that make large privacy class actions hard to bring. The commission is the lead GDPR authority for Meta, Google, Microsoft, TikTok and LinkedIn. The experts named no appointee; PPC Land linked the statement to the September 2025 appointment of the former Meta policy executive Niamh Sweeney as a commissioner. "Access to justice must be real, not theoretical," the rapporteurs wrote. The commission has issued about EUR 4.04bn in fines, roughly 66% of all announced GDPR penalties, including EUR 403m against Google on September 21. Special Rapporteurs have no enforcement powers.

Retail media reaches the petrol pump

Retail media keeps finding new forecourts. Mitchell Parton reported in Adweek that RaceTrac starts an ad business to leverage its loyalty base. The Southeastern gas station and convenience chain launched Trac Media Group, built on a loyalty programme of 6 million members. Jamie Miller, vice president of marketing for convenience, said RaceTrac spent two years investing in loyalty "in order to lay the foundation for us to be able to move forward with a retail media network." 7-Eleven and Wawa have launched their own networks in recent years.

The plumbing behind media buying is consolidating too. PPC Land reported that Microsoft search ad invoices now flow straight into Mediaocean's Prisma. Mediaocean said on November 4 that Microsoft Advertising is the first search platform in Prisma Direct, which launched in March for automated TV deals with Disney and later Warner Bros. Discovery. Orders go from Prisma to Microsoft, performance and pacing data come back, and invoices arrive electronically. "Search remains one of the most important channels for marketers," said Drew Kane, Prisma's chief product officer. The order connection dates to December 2024, when billing was promised for "the coming months." Google Ads was not mentioned.

AppLovin's margins and the audience that blocks ads

AppLovin reminded the market how much money sits in apps. James Hercher of AdExchanger reported that AppLovin is back to smashing earnings, but investors are slow to buy. Third-quarter revenue, reported after the close on November 4, came in just under $2.2 billion, of which $1.44 billion was net income, a margin of about 66% that chief financial officer Matthew Stumpf called industry-leading. Hercher noted that few ad tech firms have posted such numbers since Rocket Fuel, hardly a flattering comparison. Ad revenue rose 55%, and chief executive Adam Foroughi said the consumer ad business, which left beta only last year, is growing more than 100% a year, without disclosing its size. "We believe this business can compound at roughly 30% annually over the long term," Foroughi said. He argued that Apple's privacy changes and shrinking trackable mobile web inventory will push budgets toward apps, and said ecommerce advertisers used to short social video will need new creative for AppLovin's full-screen formats. "That ad spend is creating GDP," he said. Connected TV, still in pilot, will not add to profit soon.

On the open web, the problem is reaching people at all. Anthony Vargas reported in AdExchanger that gamers love ad blockers, so one site found another way to show them ads. WiseGuyGaming, launched last year by Mike Smith, a veteran of HBO, Forbes and Hearst, and his son Mikhail, worked with the consultant Don Marti to run two instances of FouAnalytics, one standard third-party script that EasyPrivacy lists block and one served from its own domain. Comparing the two showed that about 18% of its audience blocks ads. "We set out first to get a very pure count of our audience," Smith said. The site has shifted to sponsored and native content for that segment, and Smith added: "We are now going to launch a paid subscription service."

Television's new gatekeepers

The home screen is becoming one of the most valuable spaces in television, and a European independent raised money to defend its share. PPC Land reported that Philips TV operating system Titan OS raised $46m in equity and credit. The Barcelona company, whose software runs home screens on Philips, Sharp and JVC sets, combined new equity from Highland Europe and Mangrove Capital Partners with a credit facility from funds managed by BlackRock, taking stated total funding to $110m. The split between debt and equity was not disclosed. Titan claims 15 times revenue growth over more than three years without a baseline, and its audience claims have shifted from 18 million active users in December 2025 to "millions" now. Philips moved its 2026 range from Google TV to Titan OS in March. "Titan is a partner, not a competitor," said Laurence Garrett of Highland Europe, describing its pitch to TV makers who fear handing their screens to Google or Amazon.

Programming funded by brands is another route to an audience. Mark Mwachiro reported in Adweek that Kenya Barris bets on Black with the latest Revolt reality series. Barris is executive producer of the sixth season of "Bet on Black," which premiered October 19 with a new format in which founders from historically Black colleges receive mentorship and share a $500,000 growth fund while keeping full ownership. Target has backed all six seasons since 2021, directing about $2.69 million to Black founders, and supplied this season's fund. Revolt chief executive Detavio Samuels praised "the importance of building mission-driven and purpose-driven brands," a pitch Revolt will no doubt repeat to the next brand partner.

Diwali by the numbers

India's festival season is the year's largest shopping event for many app marketers. PPC Land reported that India e-commerce installs gained 29% before Diwali 2025, Adjust finds. Adjust, owned by AppLovin, published its Diwali report on November 4, covering its top 5,000 apps across seven verticals. In the two weeks before Diwali 2025, e-commerce installs ran 29% above the daily average; ride-sharing installs reached 67% above average during the festival. Sessions fell from Diwali onward, but average session length rose from 20.5 to 21.7 minutes. "Shoppers add apps in the sale weeks, but usage peaks once the festival is over," the report says. Diwali 2026 runs from November 6 to 10. Festive ad spend reached INR 48,000 to 51,000 crore in 2025 and is projected at INR 60,000 to 62,000 crore this year. "Diwali in India demands category-level precision," said Suchit Huria, Adjust's sales lead in India.

The diaspora is a market of its own. Eva Kis's Adweek gallery took readers inside Gold Diwali, a celebration by Gold House, held at The Majestic Downtown in Los Angeles at the end of October. Guests included the team behind "Ramayana: Rise of a Legend," described as the most expensive Indian film yet at $500 million, which debuted worldwide on November 5. Sponsors included Smartwater, McKinsey and Google's 100 Zeros, and Gold House announced a fund for South Asian short films with applications closing November 30. "Diwali is a celebration of light, community, and connection," said Bing Chen, Gold House's chief executive.

Briefs, chairs and stakes

Agencies are drowning in machine-written instructions. Sam Bradley reported in Digiday that agencies find AI overuse is leading to brief bloat. Nadja Bellan-White, chief executive of M&C Saatchi North America, estimated at Digiday's Media Buying Summit that 85% of client briefs her agency receives are written with AI, some running to hundreds of pages. "It's a little bit ridiculous," she said. A Basis Technologies survey found that 56.4% of marketers and agencies use AI to build briefs, and a GWI survey of 150 British marketers found 29% said inaccurate insights had cost their companies money. "They have exported all of their thinking to AI," said Tony Russo of Mile Marker.

One agency took payment in a different currency. Christopher Cicchiello reported in Adweek on why one agency traded billable hours for a stake in a DTC steak brand. The restaurateur David Einhorn launched Papi Ranch in October as an offshoot of his Papi Steak restaurants in Miami and Las Vegas, promoted with a gold "beefcase" holding a 55-ounce Tomahawk. The creative agency ImaginaryFriend holds a 6% equity stake and serves as lead creative and strategy partner for a discounted fee.

At the top of the biggest marketing departments, chairs were moving. Rebecca Stewart reported that McDonald's splits its top U.S. marketing job as U.S. CMO Alyssa Buetikofer exits after 15 years at the company and less than two years in the role. An internal memo said she "has chosen to step down to spend more time with her family." The role is being divided between two veteran executives, with global chief marketing officer Morgan Flatley, who held the U.S. job from 2017 to 2021, taking on additional duties while a permanent successor is found.

Holiday homecomings and a third Super Bowl

The holiday campaigns kept arriving. Lucinda Southern reported that Amazon's "Joy Delivered" holiday ad swaps product showcase for a heartfelt homecoming. The 2 minute 30 second film follows Joy, played by the New Zealand actress Kate Laidler, stranded when her flights are cancelled and helped home by strangers, to whom she gives the gifts she bought. It is set to a bespoke rendition of The Beatles' "Golden Slumbers." "The biggest challenge was getting the tone right," said Jo Shoesmith, Amazon's global chief brand officer. "People love the nostalgia of the season," she added. It was made in-house by Amazon XCM with Smuggler.

Rebecca Stewart reported that Daft Punk, Doctor Doom and E.T. unite in Lego's holiday ad, a one-minute film directed by Michael Gracey that follows a single brick through Lego's workshop to the tune of "One More Time," with K-Pop Demon Hunters minifigures in the cast. Tilde Herrera reported that Waymo bets women's safety can help win over robotaxi skeptics with "Because Women," its second national campaign, a 60-second film made by an all-female creative team that debuted on November 5 and draws on research that women feel safer in driverless vehicles. And Robert Klara reported that Ritz returns for Super Bowl 61 in a play for casual snackers, its third consecutive appearance, featuring Ritz Bits. "The brand is perceived as more modern, more fun than it was two years ago," said Steven Saenen of Mondelez. A 90-year-old cracker has found its way into the most expensive minute on television; the retailers that block shopping agents have not yet found a way into the next generation of search.