Websites are shutting their doors to AI agents
A number of major websites and companies are blocking AI agents that shop, book and carry out other tasks online on users' behalf. The trend raises doubts about how useful such tools really are.
Several large online services have in recent weeks begun denying access to artificial intelligence (AI) agents, which are programs that carry out tasks such as buying goods or booking tickets for users on their own. The technology outlet The Verge reports that the problems affect agents from Meta, xAI, OpenAI and Instinct, and they raise questions about how useful these tools actually are.
Who is blocking agents
Users report restrictions on Meta's Muse, xAI's Grok, OpenAI's Dots and Instinct's agent. The review platform Yelp said it only admits agents whose operators pay for its data licensing program. Delta Air Lines prevents agents from buying tickets for customers. The banks JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab confirmed that they keep agents out of accounts for security reasons. Some users say agents can no longer reach Cars.com and Amtrak either.
The Amazon and Perplexity dispute
Last year Amazon banned the shopping feature of the AI startup Perplexity and sued it. Perplexity argued that Amazon wants to keep agents away because it loses ad views from humans. A judge first ordered Perplexity to halt its agents, but an appeals court overturned that order in August. Amazon has since filed an amended complaint. Amazon has now said that Muse's continued access violates its site policies, and similar problems have been reported with Grok, Instinct and Dots.
Meta's approach and technical obstacles
Meta says it prefers to work with businesses, and Muse can shop on sites such as Walmart, Gap, Sephora and Best Buy. The platform Shopify has also opened its storefronts to agents. Sometimes agents are stopped not by an outright ban but by anti-bot protections. Cloudflare, which provides web infrastructure, introduced a one-click block for AI crawlers in 2025.
Chris Canal, CEO of the AI safety evaluator EquiStamp, believes such restrictions reduce the value of agents and will make the web more annoying to use as more sites demand proof that the visitor is human.
