Banks and retailers move to block consumer AI agents

In the weeks after Meta’s Muse and other consumer agents launched, a number of large banks and consumer websites were reported to be refusing to let them act on customers’ behalf. The Verge summarised the position on 17 October: users of Muse, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s Dots and the Instinct agent had reported blocks across top sites.

The evidence is a run of separate company statements and user reports. Amazon was first: from 20 September, Muse users trying to buy on Amazon received an error saying “Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use”. TechCrunch noted Amazon has its own AI models and platform, and that it, rather than the agent, would have to clean up a bad order. On 13 October, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon told an earnings call the bank would not “allow just any… outside agent to come in inside the company, because it’s just too risky for clients and for JPMorgan”, and a spokesperson confirmed the block to CNBC. Bloomberg reported on 16 October that Charles Schwab chief executive Rick Wurster said the firm was blocking unauthorised agents attempting to move clients’ money, Muse among them.

Retailers and others took varied positions. Yelp told TechCrunch it allows agents only if they pay for its data-licensing programme. Delta said it is taking steps against unauthorised automated activity and has no partnership allowing a third-party agent to book its flights, without saying outright that it blocks them. United pointed to terms of use that bar bots. eBay said it restricts unauthorised agents, not all of them; Zillow said it allows consumer agents but its anti-scraping tools may sometimes catch them. Users also named Cars.com and Amtrak, which the Verge said might be quietly blocking agents. TechCrunch also reported users’ suspicion that Cloudflare’s September change to crawler defaults was catching some agents; Cloudflare said it had no specific data.

Walmart took the opposite course. On 21 October its chief executive John Furner announced an Agent Gateway, an MCP server through which approved agents can shop at Walmart and Sam’s Club, with per-agent profiles and spending limits and terms barring agents from taking actions beyond what the shopper intends. A protocol that Meta, Walmart, Stripe and others are drafting for agent-to-business commerce is aimed at telling legitimate agents from abusive ones. Amazon’s earlier fight with Perplexity’s shopping agent is the earlier dispute of this kind.