AI Shopping Agents: Meta Muse Books Dinners, Hits Amazon Block

What Meta has actually launched

Meta's personal AI agent, Muse, is now being tested by real users in the US. It is designed to do more than answer questions. It is supposed to book the table, make the call, and buy the item. Meta announced the agent on September 8, 2026. According to Meta's Help Center, it is in limited testing in the US for adults 18 and older, on iOS, Android, the web, and WhatsApp.11 Muse can browse the web, fill out forms, place orders, and book restaurants. It connects to email, calendars, Spotify, Instagram, and OpenTable, and it runs inside a secure virtual machine that Meta operates.14

Shopping is the most commercially important part of the product. Meta has signed partnerships with Walmart, GameStop, Sephora, Expedia, OpenTable, and Shopify to build their services into the app.13 Payments go through Stripe Link. The agent asks the user to approve a purchase, and Stripe issues a single-use virtual card so the merchant never sees the user's real card details.11 On September 16, Meta added a public beta that lets the agent phone US businesses, and people have used it to book restaurant tables and salon appointments and to check whether stores have items in stock.11

People downloaded it quickly. Sensor Tower data cited by CNN put Muse past 2.5 million downloads, and it was the most popular free app in the iPhone App Store.12 Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang has said Muse already has millions of users. He called it possibly one of the fastest-growing consumer AI apps since ChatGPT.14

The Amazon block and what it shows

The clearest development so far is Amazon's refusal to deal with the agent. About twelve days after launch, on the night of September 20, Amazon began blocking Muse from completing orders on Amazon.com.11 When The Register tested it, Muse reported an anti-bot wall that stopped the automated browser before it could even reach the search page. The agent said it had stopped there because going further would break Amazon's terms.20

Amazon gave several reasons. It told GeekWire that Meta had neither informed it nor asked permission. It also said the agent does not identify itself while browsing and appears to capture and store customer credentials.20 In a statement to CNN, Amazon said third-party apps that buy from other businesses on a customer's behalf should operate openly and respect a business's choice about whether to take part. It also argued that agents strip out its personalized recommendations.13 Meta disputes the credentials point. It says the model never sees passwords or payment methods, which are kept in secure storage and used for login without being exposed to the model.20

The two sides describe the same technology in very different ways. Muse operates some services through a browser, the way a person would, when there is no public API.20 Meta treats that as a convenience for users. Amazon treats it as an unidentified bot inside customer accounts. Neither account fully disproves the other. Still, the stated reasons look less important than Amazon's broader pattern. Over the past year Amazon has blocked agents from Google and OpenAI and taken Perplexity to court over its Comet browser.20 A federal court issued a preliminary injunction barring Comet from Amazon.com after Amazon argued the agent violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.8 Amazon also sells its own agents. Alexa for Shopping researches products, and Buy for Me purchases from other retailers' sites. Amazon says Buy for Me identifies itself and lets those retailers opt out.20

In short, Amazon wants agents to be transparent and to ask permission, but only when the agents belong to other companies. The block is best understood as Amazon protecting its relationship with its customers, with security concerns as a real but secondary reason.

How the agent performs in practice

Hands-on reviews agree on the broad picture but differ on some details. A New York Times reporter spent two weeks handing parts of his life to Muse. It called his dental insurer, booked dinner reservations, and ordered groceries. It also negotiated over ceramics on Facebook Marketplace and at one point talked him out of a lowball counteroffer because it sensed the seller was getting frustrated.16 It had more trouble signing in to third-party sites. It could not buy baseball tickets without help and struggled with an AMC rewards login.16

CNN found more limits. Muse suggested two date-night restaurants that had been closed for years. When CNN asked it to haggle on Marketplace, it said it could not message sellers directly and could only draft a message.12 A Meta spokesperson insisted that Muse can negotiate within limits the user sets.19 The Times reporter's experience supports Meta on this point, so the difference may come down to settings or account setup rather than a missing feature. That remains a reasonable guess, not a confirmed explanation.

The reviews also show that the Amazon block is not unusual. On Target's site, Muse could browse, but the CNN reviewer still had to type in personal details because the retailer blocked automated clicks at checkout.12 CNN did manage to book a restaurant through Resy after giving login details. Resy, however, says it does not allow unapproved third-party bots. It locked one user's account after a different agent, called Instinct, tried to book hundreds of tables an hour.13 Restaurant bookings, which are one of Muse's main selling points, are now becoming a contested area as well.

Retailers are taking different positions

The wider market is splitting into several approaches. QVC and HSN let agents complete purchases. Kohl's does not. Walmart lets Google's Gemini show its products and then passes the basket to its own Sparky assistant. Amazon has blocked dozens of outside agents.6 Meanwhile, Shopify has turned on agent checkout by default for eligible merchants, and Stripe has made its hosted checkouts agent-ready for more than 7.8 million businesses.10 Shopify's Agentic Storefronts already link merchants to Meta along with ChatGPT, Google, and Copilot.5

One pattern is clear. Platforms whose main business is selling things directly, Amazon above all, keep agents out. Platforms that make money by helping many smaller merchants get found let them in. Muse's partner list fits this pattern. It is made up of retailers and booking services that seem to value an extra sales channel more than they fear losing control of the customer.13

Investors seem to share this view. Shares of Airbnb, Expedia, and TripAdvisor fell about 5% in the week after Meta announced Muse updates. Analysts told CNN that businesses face a choice between partnering with agent makers and risking irrelevance, or holding out and possibly missing customers.13 Bloomberg Intelligence's Mandeep Singh noted that shoppers who browse Amazon often end up buying things they weren't looking for, and that is the revenue an agent could remove.13

Rivals have struggled with the same problem

Meta is not the first company to try this, and its competitors' results should make it cautious. OpenAI retired ChatGPT's Instant Checkout in March 2026, about six months after launching it. ChatGPT now focuses on product discovery and sends shoppers to merchants' own sites to pay.10 When Walmart sold through Instant Checkout, conversion was reportedly three times lower than when shoppers clicked through to Walmart's own site.5 Google has gone further with checkout in AI Mode and Gemini through its Universal Commerce Protocol, plus a Universal Cart that follows shoppers across its services.5

Shoppers' habits have also stayed put. A PYMNTS Intelligence report found that 59.7% of the most recent AI-assisted purchases still closed on Amazon's own website, even as many shoppers now use AI for research they once did on Amazon.6 Gartner found that 64% of consumers think AI shopping agents will benefit companies and brands more than shoppers.12

According to IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo, what sets Meta apart is how heavily it is promoting shopping compared with competitors.13 Meta's main asset is consumer reach, not better checkout technology. Its recent Muse Spark model has ranked behind leading Anthropic and OpenAI models on at least one popular leaderboard.15

Trust and money

Trust is a bigger obstacle for Muse than retailer blocks. The Times reporter had to connect his bank accounts and email to get useful results.16 Bank of America analysts wrote that privacy and trust remain key issues for wider adoption.12 Some users have complained on social media that the agent read personal messages without permission, a claim Meta disputes.18

Meta is also starting to charge. On October 12 it released Muse Wonder, a more capable agent model available only on $20 or $100 monthly plans. Wang said it was trained to try other approaches when it hits obstacles such as a blocked restaurant booking, instead of stopping and asking the user.18 That makes Muse a test of whether consumers will pay for an AI agent, and a possible source of revenue beyond advertising. Investors will get their first look at its financial contribution when Meta reports third-quarter earnings on October 21.14

The takeaway

Muse shows that a big consumer platform can make AI shopping agents popular fast. It also shows that popularity does not get an agent into the stores. Within two weeks of launch, the biggest US retailer had shut Muse out, a major booking platform had stated its anti-bot rules, and a large chain was blocking automated checkout.111312 Meta's lasting advantage will depend less on model quality and more on how many merchants it can sign as partners. As things stand, AI shopping agents only work where retailers allow them in.