AI shopping agents are running into locked doors—and wary customers

AI agents are being built to do more than answer questions: They can search websites, organize email and, in some cases, attempt purchases with little human involvement. But that promise depends on access to the services where those tasks happen. A growing number of retailers, banks and travel companies are restricting automated agents, setting up a clash over who gets to act for online customers.

The objections are not all the same. Financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab have confirmed they block unauthorized agents from customer accounts, citing security concerns. eBay bars automated agents from its marketplace without prior permission, while Yelp requires agents to access its data through a paid licensing program. Delta says outside agents cannot book flights for customers without authorization; other services where agents have reportedly run into restrictions include Amtrak, Cars.com and Kohl’s.

Amazon has taken its dispute with AI-shopping company Perplexity to court. Amazon began blocking Perplexity’s shopping assistant and alleged that the company repeatedly ignored requests to stop its agents from operating on the retailer’s site. A district court initially granted Amazon a preliminary injunction, but an appeals court overturned it in August, finding Amazon unlikely to prevail on the computer-access claims behind its request. The lawsuit continued, and Amazon later filed an amended complaint. Perplexity has argued that its assistant acts on behalf of the customer using it.

Amazon has also objected to Meta’s Muse agent, saying it violates the retailer’s website policies. Meta has argued that businesses should work with AI companies rather than reject agents outright: “Rejecting a personal agent means rejecting the customer behind it,” the company said in a post. It has pursued partnerships with Walmart, Gap, Sephora and Best Buy, while Shopify has opened its network of stores to AI shopping tools. QVC and HSN, meanwhile, see agent-driven purchases as a potential sales channel, and some retailers are supplying product catalogs to OpenAI and Google.

Other companies are trying to draw a line between helping an agent find products and letting it complete a transaction. Tapestry, the parent of Coach and Kate Spade, restricts unauthorized purchases through its own sites, citing concerns including fraud, but allows selected products to be bought through Google’s Gemini and AI-powered search services with explicit approval for each transaction. The differing approaches reflect a broader commercial question: whether outside agents bring in new customers or weaken businesses’ control over transactions and customer relationships.

A website can also block an agent without having a policy against it. Anti-bot systems built to deter fraud, hacking and automated data collection may mistake a legitimate assistant for suspicious activity. User reports cited by Ynet say Google restricted some accounts that used Meta’s Muse, and that similar problems arose at Walmart despite its cooperation with Meta. Cloudflare is among the companies developing tools to manage automated traffic, including AI-driven activity.

Even if agents gain access, consumers may not be ready to hand them the checkout. A survey by payments technology company NMI found that 10% of American adults would be comfortable giving AI full control over a purchase, while 45% said they would not trust AI to make purchases for them at all. Only 3% described AI as a personal shopper able to manage every stage of the shopping journey. The results point to a distinction between using AI to compare products and letting it choose and buy something on its own.

Sky Canaves, a principal analyst at EMARKETER, told The Wall Street Journal that technology companies may be misreading shoppers’ preferences. Consumers, she said, enjoy making decisions and staying in control, particularly when money is involved. That reluctance, alongside websites’ security and commercial concerns, makes autonomous shopping a test not only of what AI can do, but of whether businesses will permit it and customers will want it to act.