Thought Leadership
Meta’s personal AI agent Muse has climbed to the top of the U.S. App Store charts, while Amazon has blocked the assistant from accessing its platform.
Meta’s new personal AI agent Muse pushed ChatGPT out of the top spot among free iOS apps in the U.S. on Friday and was still leading the rankings as of Monday evening, according to CNBC. At the same time, Amazon has blocked the assistant from accessing its shopping platform.
According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, Muse has surpassed 2.5 million downloads since its launch less than two weeks ago. That puts it ahead of services including ChatGPT, Polymarket and Kalshi, as well as competing AI apps such as Anthropic’s Claude and SpaceX’s Grok. It has also moved ahead of Meta’s own, older Meta AI app.
Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon told CNBC that agentic AI applications have so far struggled to gain traction with mainstream consumers. Muse and similar agents, however, could now point to potential for broader adoption. The positive response to the launch was also reflected in the stock market, with Meta shares rising more than 11% on Monday.
What Muse Is Designed to Do
Meta markets Muse as a personal assistant that can perform tasks on the internet on behalf of users, such as filling out online forms or organizing email inboxes. The agent runs in its own virtual machine within Meta’s cloud infrastructure and includes a browser that remains visible to the user. For sensitive actions, such as sending an email or making a purchase, Muse asks for confirmation in advance, according to Meta. A separate system called Sentinel must also approve every action the agent sends to the internet.
Amazon Blocks Access
Amazon has now blocked Muse from shopping on its platform after an attempt to persuade Meta to voluntarily stop connecting the agent to Amazon failed. Since Sunday evening, users attempting to shop on Amazon through Muse have received a message stating that continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s terms of use, which customers have agreed to.
An Amazon spokesperson said:
“We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate.”
Amazon spokesperson
According to Amazon, Meta did not inform the company that Muse would also access its online store. The agent also does not identify itself as an AI agent while browsing and apparently collects and stores customer login credentials, which Amazon says creates privacy and security risks. When prompted by a user, Muse can also access account pages and order histories. Because the agent does not identify itself, Amazon argues that an undisclosed third party is effectively moving through customer accounts, processing transactions and handling sensitive data without Amazon’s knowledge or consent.
Amazon said it is now in direct discussions with Meta but declined to comment on possible legal action. There is a lot at stake for Amazon. In addition to its core online retail business, the company generated more than $68 billion in advertising revenue last year. That business depends on users browsing Amazon’s pages and seeing the products being advertised there.
Legal Background: The Perplexity Case
Amazon has already spent the past year taking action against third-party AI agents on its platform. That includes a lawsuit against Perplexity over its Comet browser, as well as access restrictions targeting shopping agents from Google and OpenAI. In March, Amazon initially secured a preliminary injunction against Perplexity. It lost that injunction on August 4, however, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, from a legal perspective, it was the user rather than the AI company who was accessing Amazon’s computer systems. The court rejected Amazon’s request for a rehearing on September 10. The ruling did not resolve the potential use of contractual terms and terms of service, which is the legal avenue Amazon is now relying on in the Muse case.
Shopify Partners With Meta Instead
Unlike Amazon, e-commerce provider Shopify is opting for cooperation rather than blocking access. Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke announced a partnership with Meta on Monday that will eventually allow Muse to complete orders directly in Shopify-powered online stores.
(Editorial Team)
