The largest retailers and marketplaces are splitting over whether third-party AI agents can shop their stores. Amazon blocks outside agents such as Meta's Muse and wants Alexa for Shopping to be the main way in, Walmart has opened a gateway with spending controls, and Mercado Libre is keeping its inventory in-house for now. Shopify is going the other way, wiring its merchants into every major agent.
Cloudflare's paper lists 14 problems agents create for websites, and HUMAN found Meta's Muse made 72% of AI agent requests.
Our takeArkose Labs found 97.7% of legitimate agent sessions carried no verified identity, and Muse, which HUMAN found made 72% of agent requests, is adding shopping tools.
Amazon says millions more customers will get the option in the coming weeks, but has not said whether ads will appear in text replies.
Our takeFor brands on Amazon, a text reply fits very few products, and Workflow Labs research cited by PPC Land found Rufus narrowed 50 results to roughly five. Amazon has not said how products are picked in texts, whether sponsored prompts will run there, or whether Shop Direct merchants will see text-originated sales.
CEO Ariel Szarfsztejn is betting on an in-house shopping agent, while Q3 operating margin slid to 6.3% on heavy investment.
Our takeMercado Libre says it will not, for now, supply inventory to external AI shopping agents, keeping customer data and search ad revenue in-house. Its own search and agent become the main route to discovery on the platform.
Q3 revenue rose 32% to $3.74 billion as Shopify pushed its Catalog and Shop Pay wallet into a growing list of third-party AI agents.
Our takeShopify did not disclose the base behind its 3.3x AI order growth, so the more useful signal is Finkelstein's claim that Catalog-powered searches convert at twice the rate of general AI search.
Andy Jassy wants Amazon's own assistant to be the main way people shop its store, though he hinted the block on outside agents may ease.
Our takeAlexa for Shopping looks set to be the agent that matters for brands' Amazon revenue, since Amazon intends to keep shoppers and sponsored placements inside it, though the 50% spending figure is likely correlation.
Agent Profiles let shoppers approve each order or set a limit, and an MCP-based Agent Gateway is in beta for developers.
Our takeWalmart gives outside agents their own identity and spending limits while keeping card data and purchase history in-house, so it can accept agent orders without becoming a simple fulfillment endpoint.