Amazon Blocks Meta's Muse AI Shopping Agent as Rivalry Escalates Over Consumer Control

Amazon.com (AMZN-US) has blocked Meta Platforms' (META-US) new AI agent Muse from purchasing goods on its e-commerce platform, escalating a dispute over who controls consumer shopping relationships. Amazon said Muse accessed its site without authorization and failed to identify itself as an automated agent. Meta launched Muse on Sept. 8 as a personal AI agent capable of booking travel, filling forms and completing purchases across websites via Shopify (SHOP-US) and Stripe. The app topped Apple's U.S. free App Store chart within two weeks, surpassing ChatGPT, and Meta shares rose more than 20% in that period. Shopify took the opposite approach, partnering with Meta to enable agentic checkout through Shop Pay; its shares closed up over 7% on Sept. 21. Amazon previously blocked agentic tools from OpenAI and Google and is in legal dispute with Perplexity. The standoff underscores whether AI assistants will displace platforms as shopping gateways. Analysts flagged potential disruption to travel and financial portals, with Booking (BKNG-US) and Charles Schwab (SCHW-US) among those drawing scrutiny.