Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse in dispute over AI shopping access

Amazon began blocking Meta’s Muse from its retail site on September 20, just 12 days after the agent launched. As The Rundown reported, users trying to shop on Amazon with Muse are seeing a notice that the agent’s access violates the store’s terms.

Amazon acted after Meta declined its request to remove the bot, an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg.

How the block affects Muse

In its September 8 launch announcement, Meta said Muse runs on a dedicated cloud computer and requires user approval for purchases. It said credentials for connected services sit in secure storage, and the agent cannot see passwords or payment methods.

When The Register asked Muse to find a chair and proceed toward checkout, the agent reported encountering a block on automated access before it could reach Amazon’s search page. Amazon told the publication that purchasing apps should respect merchants’ decisions about whether to participate.

Why it matters

An agent that picks products and checks out can route purchases around Amazon’s sponsored listings. Amazon could keep the sale while losing chances to show the shopper paid placements. That gives it a possible commercial incentive to limit outside agents.

Amazon’s 2025 earnings figures put annual advertising services revenue at about $68.6 billion. That total includes sponsored ads, display and video. The filing does not isolate how much came from sponsored listings.

For sellers paying to appear in shopping results, agents could change the value of buying visibility on Amazon. The effect would depend on how an agent finds products and whether paid placements influence its choices. Muse’s effect on Amazon’s ad exposure and revenue remains unknown.

Amazon also offers Alexa for Shopping and Buy for Me, as The Register reported. Its own tools let it automate shopping under its own terms. Outside agents could shift more control over recommendations and the customer relationship to another company.

The Muse block extends an effort that already includes moves against Google and OpenAI shopping agents and Amazon’s November 2025 lawsuit against Perplexity over Comet.

On August 4, the Ninth Circuit vacated Amazon’s preliminary injunction against Perplexity. The court found Amazon unlikely to establish a required part of its computer access claim on the facts presented and sent the case back for further proceedings.

For shoppers, the appeal of an agent is fewer steps between choosing a product and approving a purchase. A block can send them back to the store’s own tools, force them to finish the order themselves or push them to another retailer.

Developers face access negotiations alongside the work of building agents that can shop. The Perplexity ruling addressed one dispute on its facts. Whether Amazon and outside agent providers can agree on terms for dependable access remains an open question.