Meta Muse AI Agent: How the New AI Shopping Feature Works and Why Amazon Has Blocked It

Meta's Muse AI agent can now search online stores, compare prices and prepare purchases for users, bringing agentic AI shopping to a mass audience. The feature has drawn interest from retailers and investors, but Amazon has refused to let the agent buy on its platform.

What is Meta's Muse AI agent?

Meta describes Muse as a personal AI agent that does more than answer questions, and it is powered by the company's Muse Spark Frontier model. It was first made available through Instagram and WhatsApp in the US, Canada and some other regions, and it has now begun to appear in Asia, including India.

How Muse AI shopping works

After an initial setup, users ask Muse to find an item. The agent browses retail sites for listings that match the request and shows suggestions in the Muse app and website. Users can specify the brand, price and availability they want.

If a user checks out through Muse, the agent displays an "approval card" with the order details, and nothing is bought until the user confirms.

Payments run through Meta's partners, including Link by Stripe and Shopify Shop Pay, which users must connect first. PayPal has been announced but is not yet available. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has said the company will take a small fee on transactions.

Retail partners and Amazon's objection

Meta announced retail partners on September 23, including Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Expedia, Wayfair and Best Buy, although not all of them are active yet. Shopify has also said it plans to integrate Muse so the agent can browse products from its merchants and complete purchases through Shop Pay.

Amazon is the notable exception. The company has blocked Muse from buying on its site, saying the agent violates its terms of service.

Muse adoption and Meta's AI strategy

Muse has grown quickly since launch. According to figures cited by The Motley Fool, it reached 642,000 daily active users in its first 12 days, compared with 231,000 for ChatGPT over the same period after its release. A Meta spokesperson said shopping has quickly become one of the biggest drivers of Muse usage.

On its second-quarter earnings call, Meta described personal agents as the base for its next wave of products and revenue, and said more than one million businesses use its business agents each week.

What analysts say about AI shopping agents

Goldman Sachs has described the potential change as a move from searching and shopping to delegating and approving. Today's AI shopping tools are still mostly used for product discovery and recommendations, and investors do not appear to be pricing in much near-term disruption for retailers.

Siegel, quoted by CNBC, said he sees AI as more likely to complement shopping than replace it, calling it "a tool to shop, not the exclusive way to shop."

Privacy and pricing concerns

Privacy remains a concern. In a January survey, 59% of US adults called price-gouging a major worry with AI-driven pricing. Whether shoppers will trust an AI agent with their data and payment details may decide how widely tools like Muse are used.