Two senators just put Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and Walmart's Sparky on the same FTC letter.
The ask is not abstract AI ethics. It is country-of-origin claims, Made in USA filters, and whether those chatbots steer shoppers away from U.S.-made products.
What happened (confirmed)
On September 17, 2026, Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) sent a letter to the FTC asking it to investigate Amazon and Walmart over alleged anticompetitive practices tied to their AI shopping assistants.
According to Reuters, the letter claims Alexa for Shopping and Sparky may suppress Made in USA products and fail to flag goods fraudulently labeled as Made in USA. The senators cited a study from a think tank led by former FTC Chair Lina Khan. That study, as described in the letter, said the chatbots suppress information about American-origin products while offering more detail on products made elsewhere, including China.
The letter also quotes Alexa, via the study, saying a Made in USA filter would "redirect significant sales away from their largest seller base," referring to overseas manufacturers. On Sparky, the study said the chatbot cited limited FTC enforcement against retailers when asked why it did not flag suspicious Made in USA claims.
Amazon told Reuters the suggestion that it intentionally withholds country-of-origin information is "fundamentally wrong," and that Alexa for Shopping currently directs shoppers who ask about country of origin to product detail pages. The FTC declined to comment. Walmart did not immediately respond. The Wall Street Journal first reported the development.
Separately, Reuters notes the FTC last year sent letters to Amazon and Walmart urging them to crack down on third-party sellers' Made in USA claims, citing company policies that already require accurate information.
Source: Reuters, "Amazon, Walmart chatbots attract senator ire over 'made in USA' label snags," September 17, 2026.
Why this matters
Discovery is moving into chat. Alexa for Shopping and Sparky are not side toys. They are how a growing share of shoppers will ask "what should I buy" and "is this Made in USA" without ever opening a filter panel.
If those answers are thin, biased, or silent on origin, your PDP copy and compliance work never get seen. That is a visibility problem for brands that lead with domestic manufacturing, and a risk problem for anyone running loose Made in USA claims.
This also sits next to last year's FTC pressure on both platforms over third-party origin claims. The letter does not create a new seller policy overnight. It raises the odds that Amazon and Walmart tighten enforcement, PDP attributes, and how their AI surfaces origin data.
Who it affects most
• Brands whose growth story depends on Made in USA or domestic manufacturing claims
• Sellers with country-of-origin attributes that are incomplete, inconsistent, or overstated across Amazon and Walmart
• Catalogs where AI shopping assistants already influence discovery for your categories
• Operators who treat Sparky and Alexa as buyer curiosities instead of ranking and compliance surfaces
• Multichannel brands running the same Made in USA language on both marketplaces without a shared source of truth
What sellers should do this week
1. Audit every ASIN and Walmart item that claims Made in USA, assembled in USA, or equivalent. Match the claim to the actual product and to each marketplace's current rules.
2. Fix country-of-origin and manufacturing attributes in Seller Central and Seller Center so the PDP, not a chatbot paraphrase, carries the accurate answer.
3. Pull the exact claim language from titles, bullets, A+, and enhanced content. Soft language that overpromises is still a claim when a shopper or regulator reads it that way.
4. For true domestic brands, write a short, factual origin block that a chatbot or shopper can quote without twisting it. Ambiguous marketing copy loses when AI answers get shorter.
5. Watch Seller Central and Seller Center for any origin, claim, or AI-shopping guidance that follows this letter. Do not wait for a headline about enforcement to clean the catalog.
Our take
This is not a courtroom verdict. It is a bipartisan signal that AI shopping answers on Amazon and Walmart are now a consumer-protection and manufacturing story.
Operators who already run clean origin data will be fine. Operators who used Made in USA as flavor text just got a reason to clean it up before Q4 traffic and chatbot recommendations collide.
Need a Made in USA audit before Sparky and Alexa define you? CoreTrex will map your Amazon and Walmart claims to what you actually ship, tighten the attributes and PDP copy, and keep the story consistent across both marketplaces. Talk to a strategist.