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TL;DR
Walmart announced tools for approved AI shopping agents, while Amazon has blocked Meta’s Muse from accessing its site. Meta says more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada set up Muse within about six weeks, but reported data suggests agents still do far more product research than checkout. The dispute puts retailers, platforms and consumers at odds over access, payment, data and who owns the customer relationship.
Walmart announced an Agent Gateway and spending profiles for AI shopping agents on October 21, while Amazon has blocked Meta’s Muse from accessing its shopping site. The competing approaches put a practical question at the center of a growing retail technology fight: whether a shopper’s agent can enter a store’s digital storefront, and which company controls the transaction and customer relationship.
Walmart’s announced tools are designed to let approved agents search its inventory and make purchases through a structured connection, rather than browsing its public pages as a person would. The company also announced Agent Profiles, which can set limits on an agent’s spending. The announcement came the same day Meta reported early use figures for Muse, its personal agent.
Meta said on its October 21 earnings call that more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada had set up Muse in roughly six weeks. The company said shopping was its most common use and that the average purchase was over $200. Those are Meta’s figures; the company did not provide independent verification in the source material.
The access dispute is visible in a basic price comparison. The Verge reported that Muse named Sam’s Club, Walmart and Costco as places to find granola bars at lower prices per item, then said it could not check Amazon because the retailer had blocked it. Amazon’s position, as described in the source material, is that Muse was an unauthorized agent that did not identify itself and appeared to capture and store customer credentials. Meta has disputed the credentials point, saying Muse has no visibility into users’ passwords or payment methods.
Agentic shopping
Three ways an AI agent buys for you
Every fight between shops and AI agents comes down to which of these three routes the agent uses, and whether the shop agreed to it.
The browser, like a human
The agent opens pages built for people, signs in with your login and clicks through checkout. Works almost anywhere, which is why shops object: they can't tell the agent from you.
Examples: Meta's Muse (from a virtual machine in Meta's cloud), Perplexity's Comet (from your own computer)
The shop's own agent door
Approved agents search and buy through a structured interface instead of clicking through pages. The shop sets the rules.
Examples: Walmart Agent Gateway (MCP, beta), Shopify MCP server and WebMCP checkout tools
Shared protocols
Common rules for who the agent is, what you allowed, and how the checkout and payment are confirmed.
Examples: Personal Agent Protocol (draft), Universal Commerce Protocol, Agentic Commerce Protocol
The protocols competing to be the standard
| Protocol | Backers | Covers | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Agent Protocol (Poppy) | Sierra, Meta, Walmart, Shopify, Stripe + 35 design partners | Agent identity, customer permission, one session across site, API and company agent | Draft 0.1 (9 Oct 2026) |
| Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) | Google, Shopify; site also lists Etsy, Wayfair, Target, Walmart, Amazon, Microsoft | Discovery, cart, checkout, orders; payment mandates via AP2 | Published |
| Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) | OpenAI, Stripe | Checkout between agent and merchant | Open source; ChatGPT's own checkout scaled back in March 2026 |
What a careful agent purchase looks like
- You give the task and a limit, for example a $50 cap.
- The agent identifies itself to the shop and gets only the access you approved.
- It prepares the cart and shows you an approval card.
- Payment goes through a token or one-time card, so the agent never sees your card.
- The shop’s normal returns apply if the agent got it wrong.
Sources: Meta (8 Sep 2026), Walmart (21 Oct 2026), TechCrunch on Shopify (28 Sep 2026), Sierra (9 Oct 2026), ucp.dev, agenticcommerce.dev, OpenAI (24 Mar 2026). Purchase steps: Walmart’s agent terms and Meta’s Muse description.
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Who Controls the Agent-Made Sale
For shoppers, an agent that compares prices across stores could save time, but its usefulness depends on which retailers permit access and what it can do with account and payment information. If an agent cannot inspect a retailer’s prices or stock, its recommendations may leave out relevant options. Retailer access rules can shape what the shopper sees, even when the agent is meant to act for the shopper.
The commercial stakes extend beyond the checkout. Retailers rely on direct customer relationships, advertising and loyalty programs; platforms may seek revenue from transactions or from guiding product discovery. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company expected to profit by taking “a small fee from transactions,” according to the source material. GeekWire reported that Amazon earned more than $68 billion from advertising last year, a figure that illustrates the scale of one revenue stream at issue but does not establish how agent shopping will affect it.
Publishers and affiliate sites also face a potential change. The source material says Amazon Associates commissions depend on customers using tracked links. If an agent reads a review and completes a purchase without following that link, the referral may not be credited. That is a risk to the existing model, not evidence that affiliate revenue has already fallen.
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From Browser Bots to Retail Gateways
Meta launched Muse on September 8, describing it as a personal agent able to open a browser, fill out forms and negotiate for a user. The source says Muse runs in a dedicated virtual machine in Meta’s cloud and uses Link by Stripe for payment with a one-time-use card. Amazon blocked its access on September 20. Amazon said Muse had not been identified as an agent and raised concerns about credentials; Meta said Muse could not see passwords or payment methods.
Meta announced retail connections with Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Walmart, Wayfair and Expedia on September 23. Walmart’s October announcement followed other efforts to make agent transactions more structured. Shopify offers tools for browser agents to interact with checkout, while Meta, Sierra, Walmart, Shopify and Stripe have worked on a draft Personal Agent Protocol, known as Poppy. Separately, Google and Shopify back the published Universal Commerce Protocol, and OpenAI and Stripe developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol.
These efforts reflect three routes for agent shopping: an agent can browse pages like a person, use a retailer’s approved technical gateway, or rely on shared protocols. Browser access may work across more sites, but retailers can object that they cannot readily distinguish an agent from a human customer. A gateway provides more structure and control, but depends on a retailer choosing to participate.
How Much Shopping Agents Can Do
It remains unclear how many Muse users have completed purchases through the agent, how often retailers will approve outside agents, or whether Walmart’s gateway will lead to broad adoption. Meta’s reported setup and spending figures do not show how representative those users are or how frequently agents finish transactions.
The available activity data also points to a gap between research and buying. HUMAN Security’s September data, as cited in the source material, found that 81% of agent requests went to product and search pages, while 2.4% went to checkout and payment. The figures describe requests in that dataset, not all AI shopping activity, and the source provides no basis for treating them as a measure of completed sales.
Retailer security policies and consumer protections are still developing. The source material says Muse encountered Target’s bot check on one day and got through the next, while users have faced difficulties with Delta and Amtrak. It does not establish how common those problems are, what data agents retain across services, or which company would handle a refund or dispute when an agent buys on a customer’s behalf.
Retailer Rules and Protocol Adoption
The next test is whether Walmart’s Agent Gateway attracts agents and customers, and whether other retailers adopt similar access systems. Shared protocols are also at an early stage: the Poppy specification was described as a draft, while other standards offer different ways to connect discovery, checkout, identity and payment. Their adoption will depend on whether merchants and agent providers can agree on permissions, security and transaction rules.
For shoppers, the practical safeguards are clearer than the market’s direction: check whether purchases need approval, set a spending cap where available, and understand which payment method and return policy apply. The source material does not specify a common rule for refunds or disputes across agent-led purchases. Until retailers and agent providers explain those terms consistently, users may need to check them service by service.
Key Questions
What did Walmart announce?
Walmart announced an Agent Gateway for approved AI agents and Agent Profiles that can set spending limits. The gateway is intended to let agents interact with Walmart inventory and purchasing systems through a structured connection.
Why did Amazon block Meta’s Muse?
Amazon said Muse was an unauthorized agent that did not identify itself and appeared to capture and store customer credentials. Meta disputed the credentials concern, saying Muse cannot see users’ passwords or payment methods.
How many people have set up Muse?
Meta said on its October 21 earnings call that more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada had set up Muse in roughly six weeks. This is a company-reported figure, not an independently verified count in the source material.
Are AI agents completing most shopping purchases?
The source material does not establish that. HUMAN Security’s September data found 81% of agent requests went to product and search pages and 2.4% to checkout and payment. Those figures refer to requests in that dataset, not the overall market or completed purchases.
What should consumers check before letting an agent buy?
Check whether purchases require approval, set a spending limit if available, and confirm the payment method and the retailer’s return policy. The source material says there is not yet a common, clearly established approach to refunds and disputes across agent-led purchases.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
