Meta's Muse AI Agent Drives Shopping Boom as Retailers Push Back
Meta's Muse agent passed 10 million North American downloads in about a month, and shopping is its top use. Several retailers are now blocking AI agents.
Meta's AI agent Muse, which can operate a browser on its own and complete purchases and bookings, has passed 10 million downloads in North America roughly one month after release. As adoption grows, a number of retailers are moving to restrict AI agents on their sites.
According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, shopping is the most common use of Muse, even though it can automate many kinds of tasks. More than a quarter of weekly Muse users use it to buy things, and the average purchase exceeds $200, or about 30,000 yen. Muse asks for the user's approval before buying, and users value that it can keep shopping while they are away from the screen or patiently haggle over prices at auctions.
Retailers draw lines
The trend is not purely good news for sellers. A test by The Verge found that AI agents on The RealReal, a resale site for luxury goods, could hold items in carts for long periods, keeping other shoppers from buying them. Unlike people, agents can stay on a site continuously. The retailer now makes it harder for agents to log in, add items to a cart and check out.
Tapestry, whose brands include Coach and Kate Spade, and department store Kohl's do not allow purchases by AI agents. Neiman Marcus and pet-supply retailer Chewy block some agents. Delta Air Lines says it does not support flight searches or bookings by third-party AI agents.
Banks and Amazon
Financial institutions and brokerages have reportedly acted to stop users from linking accounts to Muse for automated trading. Amazon has blocked Muse while encouraging customers to use its own agent, Alexa for Shopping, a contradiction that has drawn criticism. The company has also dealt before with children making unauthorized purchases through Alexa.
How much purchasing power to hand to AI remains an open question, and the tension between convenience and control looks set to continue.
Apps worth a look
SUMO: the number puzzleTap the right tiles, add them up, hit the target. Easy to learn, hard to master. Free, for all ages.
Dialo: learn languages by speakingTalk to an AI conversation partner; every sentence comes back corrected and explained in your language. 9 languages, A1 to C2.
ediviewer: read EDI files like documentsOpen EDIFACT and X12 messages, see every segment explained, convert to JSON/XML, export PDF and Excel. Runs locally, no upload.
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