Amazon is keeping Meta’s Muse out of its shopping carts

· Business Insider

Amazon said Muse violated its conditions.

Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images

  • Amazon blocked Meta's Muse AI agent from shopping on its website for users.
  • The online retailer says Muse did not identify itself and raised concerns about credentials.
  • It is not the first time that the company has moved to stop AI from using the website.

Meta's Muse is ready to shop. Amazon isn't buying it.

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People who send the personal AI assistant to Amazon are seeing a warning that "continued access by an unauthorized AI agent" violates the retailer's conditions of use.

A spokesperson for the e-commerce giant said in a statement that Amazon has requested that Meta remove its marketplace from Muse.

Unlike chatbots, which primarily answer questions, AI agents are designed to take actions on a user's behalf — including buying things. Amazon's block shows that even a widely used personal agent can't assume all of the internet is open for business.

The move has been flagged by some Muse users on X. Startup founder Jonathan Wegener shared a screenshot of the warning, writing: "Muse vs Amazon bot detection. Uh oh."

A spokesperson for Amazon said: "Third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate."

"Agentic third-party applications such as Muse have the same obligations," they added.

Amazon said it was not told in advance that Muse would access its store and did not authorize the activity. The company said Muse does not identify itself, appears to capture and store customer credentials, and scrapes account data, raising questions about how sensitive information is handled.

Amazon also said agents can bypass the personalization built into its shopping experience, potentially showing users products that do not reflect their history or recommendations. It expects agents to be transparent, allow retailers to opt out, and offer a mutual exchange of value.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

GeekWire first reported Monday that Muse users were encountering Amazon's bot blocker.

No bots here

Amazon's conditions of use do not explicitly mention AI shopping assistants. However, the site-access license excludes the use of "data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools."

Amazon has been trying to keep third-party agents off its marketplace for some time. It sued Perplexity over shopping activity conducted through its Comet browser and has also moved to restrict agents from Google and OpenAI.

Meta launched Muse on September 8 as a general-purpose assistant that can perform multistep tasks across email, calendars, dining, payments, and shopping. It reached the top of Apple's US free-app chart within a week.

In the Muse's launch announcement, Meta says Muse cannot see users' passwords or payment details. It says credentials are stored securely, allowing the agent to use them without viewing them.

Amazon's stance carries a commercial risk. As Business Insider's Alistair Barr previously reported, blocking ChatGPT bots could mean missing purchases from OpenAI's roughly 1 billion monthly users.

Amazon and OpenAI's recently announced advertising partnership also suggests the companies may ultimately need to find a way for agents and retailers to work together.

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