Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI shopping agent, sparking fight over who controls the customer
Amazon cut off Meta's new AI shopping agent Muse from its store on Sunday, opening a dispute over who controls the customer relationship as AI agents increasingly handle purchases.
What happened
Amazon blocked Meta's newly launched AI shopping agent, Muse, from accessing its retail platform on Sunday night, GeekWire reports. Muse, which had been live for less than two weeks, lets users delegate product searches and purchases across online stores to an AI assistant. Following the block, Meta's stock closed up more than 11% on Monday, its highest close in a year, and Muse briefly became the top free app download on both Apple's and Google's app stores, according to Yahoo Finance.
Amazon's and Meta's positions
An Amazon spokesperson said the company had not known Muse intended to access its store and had not authorized the agent to reach customer accounts, scrape data, or process transactions. Amazon argues that third-party apps buying on customers' behalf should operate openly and respect merchants' decisions on participation, comparing the situation to food-delivery and travel-booking apps. Per GeekWire, one violation Amazon cited is that its Conditions of Use require agents to identify themselves as such in every request — something Amazon says Muse fails to do. Meta has not commented publicly on the dispute, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the Sources podcast that Muse would take a small cut of each transaction, potentially paid by the merchants involved.
Wider context
The standoff follows a related Amazon lawsuit against Perplexity, maker of the Comet browser, whose agent shopped on Amazon using customers' own accounts. Amazon won a preliminary injunction in November 2025 but lost it in August, after a court found that it was the user — not the AI company — accessing Amazon's systems. Amazon's request for a rehearing was denied on September 10, but on Monday it filed a new claim arguing Perplexity caused customers to breach Amazon's Conditions of Use. Critics point to a degree of inconsistency: Amazon's own "Buy for Me" agent performs functions similar to Muse's, though Amazon says its tool identifies itself and lets brands opt out — steps it says Muse skips.
What comes next
Industry figures including Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and Box CEO Aaron Levie predict the dispute is just the start of a larger battle over control of AI shopping agents, with Apple, Google and others expected to build their own. For now, according to Coveo's 2026 Commerce Relevance Report, only 16% of shoppers are comfortable letting an AI agent independently find and buy products, but McKinsey estimates AI-driven purchase automation could account for up to $1 trillion in U.S. retail revenue by 2030.
