Amazon Blocks Meta's AI Shopping Assistant From Buying Stuff For You

Meta launched an AI assistant called Muse earlier this month. The idea is simple: instead of you clicking around Amazon yourself, Muse does the shopping for you. It browses the store, adds things to your cart, and even buys them. That sounds convenient — until Amazon stepped in and blocked it entirely this past Sunday.

Amazon's complaint is that Meta never told them Muse would be shopping in their store. A popup now tells Muse users that using an "unauthorized AI agent" breaks Amazon's rules. Amazon also raised red flags about privacy, saying Muse doesn't identify itself as a bot and may be capturing customer login credentials along the way. Meta insists Muse can't see your passwords or card numbers.

This isn't Amazon's first fight over AI shopping. They sued Perplexity last November over a similar issue, though a judge sided with Perplexity in August. Amazon has also started stripping details from confirmation emails since July — removing product names and images — to stop AI tools from mining that data.

For now, the takeaway is messy. AI assistants that act on your behalf are arriving fast, but big platforms aren't required to let them in. If you like the idea of AI doing your shopping, expect more of these turf wars — and maybe fewer places where it actually works.