Shopping AI assistants keep getting blocked by the stores they use

An AI agent can fill your grocery cart, right up until a website asks it to prove it is human. Meta's Muse hit that wall at Walmart, and Amazon is deliberately blocking rival shopping agents. For anyone hoping to hand off online errands, the practical result is the same: you may end up finishing the job yourself.

What an agent is, and why it stalls

An AI agent is software that acts for you. It can move around websites, fill shopping carts and book travel, instead of just suggesting options. But giving an agent permission does not mean a website has agreed to deal with it. Some sites block agents on purpose. Others use security tools that cannot reliably tell a helpful agent from unwanted automated traffic.

Blocks that are on purpose

Amazon is fighting Perplexity over its Comet AI browser. Amazon says the agent breaks its access rules and puts customer data at risk. Perplexity says users have authorized it to act. A federal appeals court vacated a preliminary injunction against Perplexity in August 2026, but the dispute is not settled. Amazon also has its own Buy for Me feature, which can buy from other brands' sites.

eBay's user agreement bans unauthorized buy-for-me agents unless the company gives permission. Delta told TechCrunch it has no integration letting third-party agents book flights, though it did not say whether it blocks specific agents.

Blocks that are accidents

Walmart says its verification checks were not meant to stop Muse. Zillow says its anti-scraping defenses sometimes catch agents it otherwise allows. Even a VPN user may know the feeling: Google says shared VPN networks can trigger reCAPTCHA challenges when traffic looks automated. Agents can set off similar checks just by moving around a site. Turning on a VPN will not override a site's limits.

Cloudflare, a company that protects many websites, now lets site owners separate search crawlers, AI training bots and agents acting for users. Since September 15, new sites using it allow search crawlers but block AI training bots and agents on pages showing ads. Owners can change those settings.

Where money is involved

JPMorgan Chase CFO Jeremy Barnum said on the bank's October earnings call that some agents use shared login details and screen scraping, which means reading a screen automatically, to move money. He called those methods "not secure." The bank blocks them where possible. He warned that customers who hand over their credentials could be responsible if an agent takes an action they did not want.

What to do

• Expect an agent to stall at checkout or at a human check, and be ready to step in.
• Do not give an agent your bank login or other shared credentials.
• Look for tools that ask for your confirmation. Shopify's checkout tools let agents submit orders only after the buyer confirms.

What is not settled

The Amazon and Perplexity dispute is still open. It is also unclear how many other retailers block agents deliberately and how many do so by accident.