Amazon Internal Document Outlines 'World Product Graph' to Catalog Products It Doesn't Sell; Company Calls It Brainstorming

Amazon wants to be the place where product research starts, not just where it ends. An internal document describes a project called World Product Graph that would gather data on virtually every item sold online, whether Amazon carries it or not.

The document was reviewed by Reuters reporter Greg Bensinger, who published the exclusive on Friday, Nov. 13. Reuters also cited people familiar with the matter.

What the document describes

The plan is to build a vast index of product information and serve it through Amazon's own site. The goal is to keep shoppers from leaving to research products on Google, brand websites, review sites or tech forums.

The document puts it plainly: "Amazon cannot be the go-destination for every shopping mission if customers must leave to research product relationships on Google, brand websites, and review sites." It adds that "these answers exist, but the only way to find them has been to leave Amazon for painstaking research on brand websites, third party review sites and tech forums."

It is written like a press release. It lists an aspirational release date of October 1, 2027.

The research gap Amazon is chasing

The numbers explain the motivation. A 2025 Morgan Stanley research report found that 16% of online shoppers start product research on Amazon. Google gets 57%.

When shoppers already know what they want, the picture flips. Amazon captures 41% of those searches, versus 23% for Google and 18% for Walmart.

The World Product Graph is aimed at the first group: people who are still deciding.

AI agents and a shopping assistant with accuracy problems

The document also targets the rise of AI agents, software that completes shopping tasks for users. If Amazon holds the biggest stockpile of product data, agents may lean on its index, which would route even bot-driven shopping through Amazon pages.

There is an internal motive too. The document says "Many Rufus answers are factually wrong or incomplete," referring to Amazon's AI shopping assistant, now called Alexa for Shopping. It also says running shoppers' Amazon searches through the AI is expensive. More data is meant to improve accuracy and allow the use of cheaper models.

Amazon has already moved in this direction. Links to outside retailers' products have started appearing on Amazon through a "shop direct" feature launched last year.

How the data would be gathered

The document says the project "depends on discovering how brands organize their products on their own websites." That means some brands and retailers would contribute product data to Amazon on an ongoing basis. It also means Amazon would crawl other retailers' sites on its own.

The document says Amazon has already signed up Coca-Cola and Bayer, among others, to contribute product data. It also refers to a "CEO-level P&G/Amazon summit."

Reuters could not determine how Amazon planned to crawl those sites or whether it would need permission in every case. That is the practical sticking point. Competing retailers have every reason to block a crawler built to pull shoppers toward Amazon.

Amazon's response

Amazon downplayed the document. "Draft, outdated documents often paint an incomplete picture and the existence of a brainstorming document such as this one doesn't necessarily reflect our current plans," the company said in a statement.

It added: "We're constantly working on new ideas and technologies to make Amazon's product catalog comprehensive, accurate, and helpful for customers."

Reuters could not determine if or when the plan might be implemented. A release date written into an internal draft is a target, not a commitment.

The competitive stakes

The project would put Amazon directly against Google in search and against Walmart in e-commerce. According to the document, a fully implemented graph could pull shoppers away from rival retail sites that have far less data.

The ambition is large. Amazon would be cataloging products from companies that compete with it for the same customers, and using that catalog to keep those customers on its own pages.

Whether brands see that as a distribution opportunity or a threat is not yet known. Coca-Cola and Bayer are reported as signed up. No other retailer has commented publicly, and Amazon has not said whether it has approached them.

The next concrete marker is the one on the document itself: October 1, 2027. Amazon has not confirmed that date, and has not said whether the World Product Graph will ship at all.