ai agents struggle to shop online as retailers block access

ai agents from tech companies like meta, google, and openai are being blocked by retailers like amazon and target, preventing them from completing shopping tasks for users. for example, amazon has blocked meta's muse agent and sued perplexity for ignoring its requests to stop its agent from shopping on the site. even when not blocked, agents' access to retailers is spotty, with some getting caught in bot check systems. this inconsistency affects how well ai can perform tasks for users and limits the potential of these tools.