eBay has updated its user agreement to prohibit the use of third-party chatbots and AI agents from shopping on its platform on behalf of human customers.
Taking effect from February 20, the new policy will prohibit unauthorized third-party AI-powered autonomous tools, including buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any other tool that attempts to place orders without human review. The aim, according to eBay is to preserve the buying experiences of humans and stop uncontrolled and autonomous bots from potentially undermining both CX and revenue.
Although not explicitly mentioned, the news comes hot off the heels of Google’s agentic commerce suite, which among other features, has the power to offer “personalized” discounts to shoppers browsing through AI mode in Google Search, or Gemini.
In a statement, eBay said: “We periodically update our User Agreement to ensure it reflects our published policies for how automated systems may interact with eBay. Unauthorized agentic AI tools and bots are not permitted to access or take actions on our platform.
“These rules help keep interactions predictable and safe, so we can protect buyers and sellers, apply appropriate safeguards and usage limits, and maintain a reliable experience,” the statement continued.
More than one way to block a bot
It isn’t the first such move from the ecommerce platform and a user agreement update isn’t the only way to prohibit a bot.
In December 2025 eBay updated its underlying code with new guidelines for how web scrapers, LLMs, and AI agents use the site. It’s Robot and Agent Policy for the main domain, now states: “Automated scraping, buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review is strictly prohibited.”
Similar instructions have been added to the cart.ebay.com domain blocking all automated agents – except Google’s shopping bot – from interacting with user shopping carts.
eBay also isn’t the first major online retailer to prohibit the bots.
Amazon – which has its own Buy-for-Me feature that allows app users to source products Amazon doesn’t sell – has added specific restrictions to its site against both OpenAI and Google. It looks like a protective move, but Amazon says it is because of the "reliability of AI agents" to provide accurate information for pricing, delivery, and inventory.
In 2025, Amazon even sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity to stop the AI agent feature in its Comet browser from shopping on Amazon.
Despite these moves, CEO Andy Jassy said in an earnings call last year that the marketplace is looking for ways to partner with third-party AI agents.
What eBay is doing with AI
Although eBay is against allowing third-party bots unfettered access to its platform, it isn’t against AI and has introduced a dozens of conversational and generative AI features for its own users. Among them:
- In May 2025, eBay launched its own shopping agent. Dubbed “an important next step in eBay’s AI-first customer experiences”, it is an agentic assistant designed to deliver real-time, hyper-personalized product picks and expert guidance based on shopping preferences.
- The same month eBay’s unveiled is generative AI video tool allowing users promote listings through AI generated video
- In 2024, the Magic Bulk Listing Tool launched, helping sellers create listings in bulk, simply by uploading batches of product images. The AI tool then writes the product listing for the user, fully optimized to rank within and beyond the eBay ecosystem an complete with suggested categories, titles, and item specifics in a matter of seconds for the seller to approve.
- Back in 2023, an AI-powered social media post and caption generator was made available to help sellers with their social media posts.
Earlier in January, the eBay news team published this outlook piece exploring which AI developments its own executives believe will be “trends to watch” in 2026. Among the vox pops, trust, conscious commerce, and sustainability all feature. But only one interviewee talked about the third-party agents.
Avritti Khandurie Mittal, eBay’s VP and global head of product, said: “We’re likely to see a broader shift from transactional to agentic commerce. AI agents won’t just recommend products – they’ll negotiate, verify provenance, optimize payment and delivery, and execute complex cross-border transactions end-to-end. The outcome isn’t a zero-click economy; it’s a zero-friction one.”
The battle for agentic dominance
Third-party AI agents might be firmly on eBay’s watchlist for now, but they could soon force their way into the cart.
The near-term future is likely to become a battle for dominance between the likes of Google, OpenAI, and others, and the thousands of major ecommerce platforms that have built substantial customer bases, Amazon among them. The deciding factor will be whether customers prefer to shop through third-party platforms – and what the retailers do to retain some level of ownership on the customer relationship.
Quick links
- The CX Network guide to agentic commerce and generative AI shopping
- AI search and loyalty: Why the first question matters more than the last purchase
- Are AI-generated images putting customers off?