Product1 publisherNot yet confirmed elsewhere3 min readPublished
Amazon's block on Meta's Muse puts websites in charge of which AI agents can shop
Amazon has started blocking Meta's Muse agent from browsing or buying on its store, one of several sites turning consumer AI agents away. Each site now sets its own terms for agents, so the teams who run checkout need a plan for agents as well as for people.
The Product Desk · Product desk
Drafted by a language model from the sources cited here and checked against its claim ledger before publication. How we use AISend a correction
What happened
- Walmart, which announced a Muse partnership at Meta's Connect conference in September, told TechCrunch that failed Muse purchases on its site were not intentional.
- United pointed to terms of use that bar any robot, spider or other automatic device on its website without the airline's prior written permission.
- Early adopters have also reported blocks at Yelp, eBay, Zillow, Pizza Hut and Adidas, according to social media complaints TechCrunch reviewed.
- Meta, Walmart, Stripe, Sierra, Genesys, Rocket, NiCE and Decagon are drafting an open standard for how agents deal with businesses, aimed at telling user-authorized bots from bad ones.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- decision A retailer now has to pick which agents it wants, then confirm that the spam defenses it already runs agree with that pick.
- exposure Agent makers take the complaints for failures they cannot fix, because a retailer's human check that boots a partner's agent looks to the user like the agent breaking.
- constraint Flight booking, one of the jobs agents are sold on, is hard to deliver while airlines have no integration in place or bar automation in their terms.
- precedent If the standard is adopted, sites that want agents get a way to admit them without dropping bot checks; it offers nothing to a site that has chosen to keep a given agent out.
A Muse user asks the agent to finish a Walmart order. The site puts up a button the visitor has to click to show it is human. If that click is interrupted, the check can fail and the agent gets booted out [9]. The user is left with an order that didn't go through and no way to know whether Walmart meant it [6].
Here's what teams tell themselves: a partnership announced on stage settles access. Here's what users actually hit: the site's anti-bot layer, built to stop spam and malicious traffic [5]. Walmart says it wants customers to be able to reach it through agents [8]. Its human check turned the partner's agent away anyway, and NBC reported the same problem in Walmart's own tests [7].
Amazon blocked Muse on purpose [5]. TechCrunch's report does not include Amazon's reason. Amazon is also missing from the eight companies named as working on the open standard for agent commerce [10] [16]. Delta and United are not on that list either [10].
The pitch for these agents leads with errands like booking flights [2]. Flight booking is one of the main uses agents are positioned for, and it is where users report rejections [11]. Delta said it is protecting customers from unauthorized automated activity, and that any opening to agents would have to be done with "security and the customer experience in mind" [12]. "While Delta does not currently have a partnership or integration that enables a third-party AI agent to shop for or book Delta flights on a customer's behalf on our digital platforms, we're continuing to evaluate how new technology, including external AI agents, could enhance the way customers engage with Delta," said Heena Chavda, Delta's general manager of global communications [13].
For a site team, the decision has two axes. One is intent: whether you want a given agent transacting for your customers. The other is behaviour: whether your bot defenses let that agent through today. Put them in a grid.
Want it, and it gets through: the target.
Want it, and it gets blocked: Walmart [8] [9]. The fix belongs to the team that owns the human check. It starts with running each partner agent through checkout before the partnership is announced.
Don't want it, and it gets blocked: Amazon with Muse [4], and Delta's stance on unauthorized automation [12].
Don't want it, but only a document says so: United's terms require prior written permission for any automatic device [14]. United did not answer a follow-up on whether it blocks specific agents such as Muse [15].
I'd decide access agent by agent and test the human check against every agent on the yes list. The tradeoff is that each exception to a human check is a gap a spam bot can try to imitate, and the standard meant to tell good bots from bad is still being drafted [10].
Agent makers face the same decision from the other side: tell the user which box a failure falls in. Saying plainly that a site blocks the agent admits a hole in what the product can do. Staying quiet means users keep blaming the retailer and the agent together [6].
What to watch
- Whether Amazon gives a reason for blocking Muse, or joins the agent-commerce standard Meta and Walmart are drafting.
- Publication of the standard's specification, and whether any airline, Delta included, signs on.
- Whether Walmart changes its click-to-verify button so partnered agents can finish checkout.