Amazon opens its seller tools to outside AI agents, starting with Anthropic’s Claude

Amazon announced new AI tools for its independent sellers Wednesday, led by a plugin that lets them run their Amazon businesses from Anthropic’s Claude or Amazon’s own Quick assistant.

The idea is to let sellers check inventory, adjust prices and update listings without opening Seller Central, which merchants have used for years to manage their Amazon businesses. Amazon says about 90% of sellers already use some form of outside AI to run parts of their operations.

“Our vision was that they would never have to log into Seller Central,” said Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon’s vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Experience, in an interview. “We would just bring it to them where they work.”

The company is making the announcement at Accelerate, its annual seller conference, taking place in Seattle this week. It’s also releasing automations that monitor a seller’s business in the background and can act on it with the seller’s approval, and an upgraded Seller Assistant that remembers a seller’s pricing patterns, inventory cycles and growth goals from one session to the next.

The stakes: Independent sellers account for more than 60% of units sold on Amazon worldwide, and the fees Amazon charges them brought in $46.8 billion in the second quarter, more revenue than AWS.