Published Oct 17, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC.
OpenAI, Meta, Google, Instinct, and others promise agents can scour the internet on users’ behalf. In recent weeks, users of Meta’s Muse, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s Dots, and Instinct reported blocks preventing agents from tasks across top websites.
- Yelp (via TechCrunch): only allows AI agents that pay for its data licensing program.
- Delta Air Lines: preventing agents from booking tickets.
- JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab: blocking agent account access over security concerns.
- Cars.com, Amtrak: reportedly no longer accessible to some agents.
Amazon banned Perplexity’s agentic shopping last year and sued; judge ordered Perplexity to stop, appeals court overturned in August; Amazon filed amended complaint. Amazon said Muse’s “continued access” violates site policies; reports of Grok, Instinct, Dots blocked on Amazon as well.
Chris Canal, CEO of EquiStamp: blocking reduces perceived value of frontier agents if companies “actively working to make that not happen.”
Meta blog: “Turning away a personal agent means turning away the customer behind it.” Meta partnered with Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Best Buy; Shopify opened storefronts to agents.
Agents may clash with anti-bot systems (Reddit reports of Google blocking Muse accounts; Walmart checkout issues despite Meta partnership). Cloudflare one-click AI crawler blocks and dual-use crawler rules cited as infrastructure response to AI bot load.
Canal: blocks may make the web more annoying with more CAPTCHA-style hoops on ordinary sites.
OpenAI and Google did not immediately comment to The Verge; Instinct declined.