Amazon has blocked Muse, Meta’s personal artificial intelligence agent that can perform online actions on behalf of users, from shopping on Amazon.com. Introduced on September 8, the system can purchase products, make reservations, fill out forms, and carry out various digital tasks on behalf of users. As of Sunday night, Amazon shut down access to e-commerce transactions carried out through the agent.
Amazon Requested Prior Approval for Muse
Amazon asked Meta to exclude its retail platform from the artificial intelligence agent’s scope of use, but Meta did not comply with the request. Amazon spokesperson Lara Hendrickson said that third-party applications shopping from other companies on behalf of customers should operate transparently and respect service providers’ decisions on whether to participate in the system. The company stated that this approach is also a standard practice used by food delivery and online travel platforms.
Muse Completes E-Commerce Transactions on Behalf of Users
Unlike traditional chatbots, Meta’s new artificial intelligence agent can carry out multi-step actions across the web. Muse can perform tasks such as browsing the internet, shopping, sending emails, making travel reservations, and filling out forms. Meta says that Link by Stripe infrastructure is used during the payment process and that actual card details are not visible to the agent. The company also states that users’ passwords and payment information are kept in secure storage environments.
Amazon Is Concerned About Security and Data Access
Amazon claimed that Meta did not provide advance notice regarding Muse’s access, that the system did not identify itself as an artificial intelligence agent while browsing the site, and that it was able to process customer credentials. Meta, meanwhile, had stated that the system could not directly see secure login information or card payment data. Since July, Amazon has also been limiting data collection by external artificial intelligence services by reducing certain details, such as product names and images, in order confirmation emails.
Amazon Is Also Restricting Other AI Shopping Agents
Amazon’s decision is not limited to Meta. The company previously initiated legal proceedings against Perplexity’s Comet tool while also restricting shopping access for third-party artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. At the same time, Amazon is developing AI-powered shopping solutions through its own “Buy for Me” feature.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had previously stated that artificial intelligence agents can sometimes provide inaccurate price and product information and said that the company was holding discussions with different technology providers to create a better customer experience. With the latest restriction on Muse, access rules between artificial intelligence, e-commerce, and retail platforms have once again come into focus.