Amazon won't let AI agents shop 🖕

Amazon won't let AI agents shop 🖕

We recently wrote about retail pilot ideas as more people turn to LLMs to find products. But not every marketplace welcomes that future.

Amazon has blocked access for Muse, Meta's* general-purpose AI agent, which can shop on a user's behalf. Amazon says the agent did not identify itself when visiting the site, while its access to customer accounts posed data-security risks. The company first asked Meta to exclude Amazon from the service, then blocked the agent itself.

The marketplace has previously made life difficult for AI bots and agents from Perplexity, OpenAI, Anthropic and even Google.

I also see a straightforward fight for the customer. When someone else's agent chooses the products, it becomes harder to influence that choice through your own storefront, ads and recommendations. The customer may still be yours, but someone else is doing the talking.

Not every online retailer is so closed off. Walmart and Target, for example, are developing integrations with outside AI services, including ChatGPT. But those are agreed partnerships: an integration does not mean any bot can enter the store.

Perhaps it's time for an AI-agent openness index for online retail: where agents can search products and compare prices, where they can build a cart and check out, and where they get turned away at the door.

Frankly, given the current state of our “sovereign” LLMs, I'm not sure whether opening marketplaces to such agents is a blessing or a curse. Helping someone choose a purchase and placing the order on their behalf carry very different levels of responsibility.

And here's another retail pilot idea: build a general-purpose LLM agent of our own, shopping included. An assistant you can entrust with everyday tasks, as well as finding and buying products across stores.

The first thing to test? Which stores will actually let it in ⛓

Meta is designated an extremist organization and banned in Russia.