GoKawiilAI shopping agents from OpenAI and Meta are getting blocked by major websites
The rise of consumer AI agents like OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse—which can book flights, hotels or restaurants on a user's behalf—has led sites including Pizza Hut, Yelp and Amazon to block them outright. Muse reportedly reached 5 million downloads in its first month, and agentic web traffic tripled between August and September. Amazon has also sued Perplexity over its AI agents and is appealing a court loss, arguing the bots make it harder to distinguish human ad views from automated ones.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Because agents act at machine speed on behalf of real people, they don't fit existing categories for bots versus humans, which pushes security-minded platforms toward blanket bans rather than nuanced access rules. Wharton's Ethan Mollick suggests this friction could eventually force a broader redesign of how the web distinguishes and accommodates automated visitors, with implications for advertising, e-commerce and site design across the internet.
- Meta's Muse hit 5 million downloads in its first month as agentic traffic tripled in two months
- Sites like Pizza Hut, Yelp and Amazon have blocked AI agents from completing bookings or purchases
- Amazon is appealing a legal loss to Perplexity, citing threats to its ad business from agent traffic
Source: technologyreview.com — James O'Donnell, 2026-10-19
Published there as: “Making the internet better for AI agents might make it worse for everyone else”
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