Why Amazon is blocking Meta’s Muse shopping agent

Amazon has blocked Meta’s Muse from making purchases on clients’ behalf, saying the AI agent accesses its retailer with out permission and creates privateness and safety dangers. Customers have been seeing a warning citing Amazon’s Circumstances of Use by September 20, in response to GeekWire’s original report.

The rapid dispute issues entry to buyer accounts. There’s additionally a industrial motive for Amazon to withstand: an assistant that chooses merchandise for somebody can scale back the searching by which Amazon sells promoting. That incentive is evident; it doesn’t set up that promoting precipitated this explicit block.

Muse can full the acquisition

Meta launched Muse on September 8 as an assistant that carries out duties. It could function a browser and fill in types, asking the person for approval earlier than making a purchase order. Meta says it runs on a devoted pc within the cloud.

Think about asking an assistant to discover a espresso machine beneath $150 and purchase your most popular possibility. It may examine merchandise, current a advice and full checkout after you approve. The retailer nonetheless receives an order, however you might by no means browse its search outcomes your self. That modifications each who handles the account and who will get to affect your selection.

Amazon objects to how Muse enters accounts

Amazon instructed GeekWire that Meta had not notified it earlier than permitting Muse to buy there. It says the agent fails to establish itself and seems to seize and retailer buyer credentials. Amazon additionally says Muse can attain order histories and account pages when prompted.

Meta’s technical documentation offers a extra particular account of the password dealing with: credentials are saved individually from the AI agent and inserted into the browser when wanted. The mannequin itself can not learn them, Meta says. Retaining passwords away from the mannequin is a safeguard, although the system nonetheless makes use of them to enter accounts. It doesn’t resolve Amazon’s objection to that entry.

The authorized place additionally wants care. Amazon sued Perplexity over its Comet assistant in November 2025, however the Ninth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction on August 4. On the information earlier than it, the court docket discovered Amazon unlikely to succeed beneath the computer-access legal guidelines at subject as a result of the person was accessing Amazon with an AI instrument. The court docket expressly preserved Amazon’s capacity to control entry by person phrases. That call involved Comet, not Muse.

Amazon’s Sponsored Merchandise advertisements can seem inside purchasing outcomes and on product pages. Advertisers pay for clicks. Their worth is dependent upon reaching individuals whereas they’re selecting what to purchase.

Within the coffee-machine instance, an assistant may choose a product earlier than the shopper reaches Amazon. A competing vendor’s paid placement would then have much less alternative to alter that call. The impact is dependent upon how the assistant finds and presents merchandise; utilizing an agent doesn’t mechanically eradicate promoting.

Amazon’s reported quarterly promoting income provides as much as $68.6 billion for 2025. That features sponsored advertisements, show and video promoting. It’s the measurement of the broader enterprise, not an estimate of income threatened by Muse. Neither the block nor that determine tells us how a lot promoting earnings purchasing brokers would possibly displace.

Amazon desires a say in who completes the order

Amazon already operates a comparable service. Its Buy for Me feature lets clients ask Amazon to buy chosen merchandise from different manufacturers’ web sites. Amazon says manufacturers can select whether or not to take part. The client confirms the acquisition inside Amazon’s app, whereas the model handles achievement and returns.

That association retains Amazon concerned within the product choice even when one other retailer will get the sale. Muse may transfer that call into Meta’s assistant. Amazon’s objection to unapproved entry subsequently aligns with its curiosity in protecting management over how customers attain merchandise.

For retailers and entrepreneurs, this separates two questions which are usually bundled collectively: whether or not an assistant recommends a product, and whether or not it could possibly really purchase it. A model may seem in an AI advice whereas its most popular retailer blocks the agent at checkout. Evaluating that gross sales channel requires checking each steps.