Autonomous agents are the hottest thing in AI. OpenAI, Meta, Google, Instinct and others promise that their agents can explore the Internet on your behalf, doing anything from booking a dinner and cleaning out your inbox to buying new shoes. But what happens when the rest of the Internet doesn’t work well?
In recent weeks, users of services such as Meta’s Muse, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s Dots, and Instinct have reported crashes preventing their AI agents from performing tasks on major websites. Yelp said TechCrunch which only allows AI agents who pay for its data licensing program, while Delta Air Lines prevents them from booking tickets on behalf of users. JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab have also confirmed that they are blocking AI agents from accessing accounts for security reasons. Some users say sites that previously worked with their AI agent can no longer be accessed, including Cars.com and Amtrak, suggesting other companies could be silently blocking them.
Amazon was already fighting AI agents last year when it banned Perplexity’s agent shopping feature and sued the AI startup, raising legal and practical questions about the future of agents on the web. At the time, Amazon said it “repeatedly requested” that Perplexity stop allowing its AI agents to shop on its website, adding that third-party companies that purchase items on behalf of customers “should operate openly and respect service providers’ decisions about whether to participate.”
Perplexity responded by pointing out that Amazon doesn’t want AI agents wandering around its platform because it won’t have as many human eyes in front of its ads, which is a real problem for the e-commerce giant. The AI startup likened its AI agent to an extension of the user, arguing that Amazon “does not believe in its right to hire labor, to have an assistant or an employee act on its behalf.” While a judge later ordered Perplexity to prevent its AI agents from purchasing from its website, an appeals court overturned this ruling in August. Amazon has since filed an amended complaint.
Even if websites don’t ban AI agents entirely, agents may still clash with anti-bot systems.
This ongoing legal battle did not stop OpenAI, Meta, and Google from implementing their own agents. But they are dealing with the same problems as Perplexity. Muse, Meta’s deceptively cute AI assistant, recently faced the wrath of Amazon, which said its “continuous access” violates its site’s policies. There are reports that xAI’s Grok, Instinct’s AI agent, and OpenAI’s Dots are also unable to use Amazon. xAI owner Elon Musk responded by saying that maybe “I should create a competitor to Amazon.” The more places have difficulty accessing robots, the greater the questions will be about their usefulness.
“Does this affect the perceived value of Anthropics and OpenAI? I would say absolutely,” says Chris Canal, CEO of AI security evaluator EquiStamp. The edge. “One of the claims is that they are going to permeate every aspect of our lives and be able to do anything we could do online. If there are companies that are actively working to prevent that from happening, there are fewer useful things that agents can do.”
Meta responded to cases of websites blocking Muse in a post earlier this month. “Rejecting a personal agent means rejecting the customer behind them,” the company states. “We would rather work with businesses to address underlying concerns than see them lose that customer.” Instead of trying to fight Amazon, the company has partnered with retailers like Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Best Buy and others, allowing Muse to shop on their sites. At the same time, Shopify also opened its store network to AI agents.
The edge It reached out to OpenAI and Google for comment on the obstacles their AI agents face, but did not immediately receive a response. Instinct declined to comment.
Even if websites don’t ban AI agents entirely, agents may still clash with anti-bot systems, which have become ubiquitous across the web. Reports on Reddit suggest that Google is blocking some accounts using Muse due to “suspicious activity,” while others have reported problems checking out at Walmart despite their Meta partnership. “There are all kinds of things that are configured not even to block agents, but to generally block bots or programs that try to scam or hack,” Canal adds. “These AI agents activate those same safeguards.”
Web architecture provider Cloudflare has also played a part in helping sites clamp down on unwanted AI visitors. After introducing a one-click block for AI crawlers in 2025, Cloudflare began blocking crawlers that crawl websites simultaneously for both search indexing and AI training. The move is part of Cloudflare’s efforts to save the web from an influx of AI bots, which is putting a strain on internet infrastructure and wreaking havoc on email inboxes, and could eventually make it even harder than it already is to compete against bots when buying concert tickets, making reservations, or trying to get your hands on certain products.
While these blocks may help keep some AI agents and bots off a website, Canal says they will ultimately make the web more “annoying” to use as more sites implement interfaces to confirm that you are not a robot. “We could soon see them on a simple grocery shopping website, where you’ll have to jump through a lot of hoops to prove you’re a human being using the computer or phone.”
