Amazon is reportedly blocking Meta‘s new AI agent Muse from shopping. As spotted by GeekWire, people attempting to use Muse to buy products from Amazon are now being served with a warning that doing so violates the online marketplace’s terms of use.
Meta introduced its personal AI agent Muse earlier this month, billing it as a digital assistant that “doesn’t just answer questions, it actually does the work.”
“People just tell Muse what needs to get done, and it takes action, powered by Muse Spark, Meta’s most capable model to date, built for real-world agentic work like this,” Meta wrote in its Sept. 8 announcement.
Such tasks include shopping, with Muse capable of paying for purchases using Link by Stripe. Meta further stated that it has plans to add Shop Pay as an alternate payment method (as well as 1Password support so you can give its AI the ability to use all your login credentials across all websites, if that was something you wanted to do).
However, at least for now, Amazon won’t be one of Muse’s preferred retailers. GeekWire reports that consumers trying to use Muse to shop on Amazon have recently begun to see a popup stopping them from doing so.
“Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed,” the warning reads.
Amazon’s Conditions of Use contains a section specifically relating to autonomous agents such as Muse, stating that they are barred from using its services unless they fulfil several transparency requirements. These include identifying themselves as a specific agent, not imitating or disguising themselves as humans, and not trying to circumvent Amazon’s limits regarding how they interact with it. Amazon further reserves the right to limit or block agents’ access at its own discretion.
In a statement to GeekWire, an Amazon spokesperson said that third-party applications such as Muse “should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate.” Meta’s Muse allegedly fails to identify itself, as well as captures and stores Amazon users’ credentials in a potential security concern. According to Amazon, Meta did not inform it that Muse would access its storefront, and as such received no authorisation to do so.
Mashable has reached out to both Amazon and Meta for comment.
Amazon is currently beta testing its own AI shopping agent Buy for Me, which is capable of purchasing products on users’ behalf on its own platform as well as from third-party vendors.
Source: https://mashable.com/tech/amazon-meta-muse-block-shopping-ai-agent
