A study published this week by Columbia Law School's Center for Law and the Economy found that Amazon's Alexa for Shopping is capable of detecting mismatches between "Made in USA" claims in product titles and contradictory origin information in product specifications. The AI knows. It's just not telling anyone.
Researchers Erie Meyer and Zachary Harris tested Alexa for Shopping by querying it on products with explicit "Made in USA" claims that contained contradictory import data elsewhere in the listing. Alexa identified the discrepancies when asked directly, and declined to surface the information unprompted. When researchers asked why it wasn't flagging the false claims, the chatbot attributed the silence to corporate policy designed to protect overseas sellers from losing sales.
That's quite a thing to say out loud.
Why This Matters for Brand Sellers
If you're a domestic manufacturer competing with cheaper imports on Amazon, this study is bad news. The mechanism that should theoretically give you a competitive advantage, an AI that could steer buyers toward genuinely American-made products, is instead suppressing that signal. Alexa for Shopping has the data to distinguish your listing from a falsely labeled import. It chooses not to use it.
The study also notes that Amazon's AI behaved inconsistently depending on the query framing. When researchers asked about "Made in USA" items, Alexa frequently blocked or restricted responses. When the same questions were framed around "Made in China," the chatbot returned detailed answers without issue. The study characterizes this as asymmetric transparency: the AI will tell you where a product is made when the answer supports the platform's commercial interests, and won't when it doesn't.
For sellers making legitimate "Made in USA" claims, the immediate implication is that your label isn't getting the weight from Alexa that you might expect. If a shopper asks Alexa to recommend American-made products in your category, your accurate claim isn't necessarily surfacing any faster than a competitor's false one. The study suggests the playing field inside AI shopping assistants is not being leveled by data, even when the data exists to level it.
The Compliance Risk for Sellers Making Origin Claims
The FTC's "Made in USA" standard requires that a product be "all or virtually all" made in the United States. The FTC urged both Amazon and Walmart last year to crack down on third-party sellers who violate this standard, citing their own seller policies that require accurate origin information. Amazon's response was a spokesperson statement saying the company is working to improve how Alexa surfaces country-of-origin data. The study dropped a day later.
If you're a seller using "Made in USA" claims and your supply chain has any imported components, this study is a useful reminder that the standard is strict and the scrutiny is increasing. The FTC's letter to Amazon and Walmart was a signal that enforcement attention is on origin claims. A high-profile academic study covered by Reuters turns up the temperature further. "We're working on it" is probably not the policy outcome that ends this conversation.
For sellers who are genuinely compliant, the picture is different but still worth watching. The study creates pressure on Amazon to improve how Alexa handles origin information. If Amazon responds by making Alexa more likely to actively surface verified domestic claims, that could eventually benefit sellers with legitimate production.
It's also possible Amazon responds by suppressing origin-related queries further, which would be the opposite of helpful. Either way, the landscape for origin claims on Amazon is less stable today than it was a week ago.
What You Should Do Right Now
If you have "Made in USA" claims anywhere in your listings, title, bullet points, A+ content, or brand story, it's worth doing a compliance audit now rather than after a policy change forces one. Check that every component and labor input that contributes to the product meets the FTC's "all or virtually all" standard. If your product has any imported inputs, you likely can't use a flat "Made in USA" claim, but you may qualify for a more specific origin statement like "Assembled in USA with global components," which is a different and more defensible claim.
If you're a brand that relies on domestic manufacturing as a genuine differentiator, the short-term answer is to make sure your origin claims are accurate and documented, and to make the "Made in USA" positioning visible in places beyond Alexa, where AI shopping assistants have less control over what surfaces. Your A+ content, your brand store, and your off-Amazon channels are all places where you can lead with domestic production without depending on Alexa to surface it for you.
We work with brands across a range of categories where origin claims, compliance, and AI discovery interact in ways that aren't always obvious. If you want a fuller picture of how AI shopping assistants evaluate listing content, our page on content optimization for AI search is a good place to start. And if you'd like to talk through how this study affects your specific listings, schedule a call with the team and we'll take a look together.