A report from GeekWire has revealed that Amazon blocked access to its sites by Meta’s AI shopping agent, Muse. The ecommerce giant had initially asked Meta to exclude Amazon from the agent’s shopping experience but had been unsuccessful.
GeekWire cites an Amazon spokesperson as saying:
“We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate.”
It should also be noted that Amazon’s model also includes advertising that depends on consumers – rather than agents – scrolling its site.
Muse has been enjoying rapid success, garnering the top spot in the Apple App Store and helping Meta’s stock leap 20%, according to CNBC. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, stated at the company’s Connect conference that Muse was to be the ‘centrepiece’ of making technology more available to the public as a whole, rather than just IT experts.
Shopping on people’s behalf, filling in forms and booking appointments appear to be Muse’s key benefits and sites such as Shopify have allowed it to browse however Amazon is holding out, stating it violates the company’s terms of service.
