Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse AI agent from shopping on its marketplace, opening a larger debate about who controls the customer relationship when AI agents begin buying products on consumers' behalf. Meta launched Muse earlier this month as a personal AI agent that can browse websites, compare options, fill out forms, and complete purchases after receiving user approval. But when Muse attempted to shop through Amazon, the e-commerce company blocked its access. Amazon says Meta had not received permission for Muse to operate on its marketplace and that the agent did not identify itself while browsing. Meta has not publicly…
A familiar part of Google shopping searches is disappearing across Europe. Organic product carousels, often displayed as “Popular products,” have largely vanished from search results in the European Economic Area. According to data from Productrise, their appearance across monitored commercial searches dropped by roughly 90% to 100% within days in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Outside the EEA, including the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia, Productrise observed no comparable decline. For European retailers, the change removes a prominent source of free product visibility and could alter how shoppers move from Google searches to individual product pages. From…
