AgentsAutonomy & tool use
Sites split on AI shopping agents as Meta's Muse drives a surge in agentic browser traffic
Agentic-browser requests rose from 12.5 million in August to 58.2 million in September, with Meta's Muse accounting for a third. Amazon, Yelp, Delta and banks are restricting agents while Shopify builds them a checkout, raising concerns about the web humans use.
From the MIT Technology Review · AI article of October 19, 2026 and cited sources: DataDome, which sells bot-management services, measured a 4.7x month-over-month jump in agentic-browser requests. [2] [9]
SOURCES[2] PPC Land: Muse 33% share ppc.land[9] Help Net Security: DataDome report helpnetsecurity.com
AT Pulse research deskPublished · Updated · 5 min read · AI-assisted analysisAI-assisted, not human-edited. Methodology Corrections Who owns this site
- What happened
- DataDome, which sells bot-management services, measured a 4.7x month-over-month jump in agentic-browser requests. [2] [9]
- Original source
- MIT Technology Review · AI article, independent perspective
- Brief by
- AT Pulse research desk AI-assisted; publisher and contact on the desk page
- When
- October 19, 2026 article published
- Covered
- Oct 20 edition
- Evidence
- 16 sources across 15 sites
QuietHow it’s measured
Hacker News · 2 likes
Reach blends public engagement (views, likes, comments, shares, stars) from the platforms where the story or its original source lives: YouTube, Hacker News, GitHub, Substack and similar. A video and the article written from its transcript share one score, taken from the video. Platforms with no data are left out rather than counted as zero, and the age of a story never lowers its score.
DataDome, which sells bot-management services, measured a 4.7x month-over-month jump in agentic-browser requests. The widely quoted 'more than tripled' figure applies only when Muse is excluded. Muse does not identify itself as an agent. Most sampled Muse requests came from cloud or CDN networks, and nearly 9% hit sensitive endpoints such as forms, logins and payments. [2] [9]
Websites are taking different approaches. Amazon, Delta and some banks block agents. Yelp admits only agents that pay for a data license. Shopify lets browser agents inspect, edit and complete checkouts through structured WebMCP tools, with the buyer's authorization, instead of scraping pages. [5] [12] [13] [14]
A unanimous Ninth Circuit panel lifted Amazon's injunction against Perplexity's Comet agent. It held that users, not Perplexity, access Amazon under the federal anti-hacking law, and the court later denied rehearing. This makes anti-hacking claims a weaker tool for blocking agents. [3] [4] [16]
The predicted harms to human users have not been measured yet. They include customer-service queues swamped by agents, different prices shown to different agents, and more frequent checks asking users to prove they are human. [1]
Measured evidence shows agent traffic growing fast and reaching login and payment pages; harms to human users remain forecasts.
Read the full assessment
For merchants and security teams, IP filtering and CFAA claims look weaker, pushing choices toward blocking, licensing or structured agent access.
Executive brief
Agents that browse and buy for people are now a large share of web traffic, and many sites are shutting them out. DataDome counted 58.2 million agentic-browser requests in September 2026, up from 12.5 million in August. Meta's Muse made 33% of September's requests after only nine days of general availability (PPC Land). Amazon, Yelp, Delta and banks block these agents. Shopify does the opposite and gives them their own checkout. MIT Technology Review argues that a web rebuilt around agents could get worse for the people still browsing it themselves.
What changed and event timeline
Appeals court sides with Perplexity
A unanimous Ninth Circuit panel lifted Amazon's injunction against the Comet agent. It held that users, not Perplexity, "access" Amazon under the federal anti-hacking law (CFAA) ().
Rehearing denied
The Ninth Circuit turned down Amazon's request for a rehearing by the full court. No judge asked for a vote ().
Shopify opens checkout to agents
Browser-based agents can now inspect, edit and complete Shopify checkouts through WebMCP tools, with the buyer's authorization. Muse is a named partner ().
OpenAI launches Dots
These are always-on agents with their own cloud computer and browser, available to ChatGPT Pro and Business Premium users (;).
Muse passes 5 million downloads
Sensor Tower data put Muse at 5 million downloads in 22 days, helped by heavy promotion on Meta's own platforms ().
DataDome Q3 report
AI agent traffic reached about 25 billion requests in the quarter, up 41.5% from Q2. Meta generated 49.7% of it ().
Capabilities and access
- Meta Muse: sends email, books travel, fills in forms and makes purchases. Only the US and Canada so far (9to5Mac).
- OpenAI Dots: runs on GPT-6 Astra and connects to more than 4,000 ChatGPT-integrated apps (The Rundown).
- Perplexity Comet: an agentic browser that can log in to accounts and buy things (The Next Web).
Read the full section
- Meta Muse: sends email, books travel, fills in forms and makes purchases. It runs in a dedicated VM in Meta's cloud on the Muse Spark model, and is available on iOS, Android, the web and WhatsApp (Quartz). Only the US and Canada so far (9to5Mac).
- OpenAI Dots: runs on GPT-6 Astra and connects to more than 4,000 ChatGPT-integrated apps (The Rundown).
- Perplexity Comet: an agentic browser that can log in to accounts and buy things (The Next Web).
Technical analysis for researchers and developers
- Detection: Muse does not identify itself as an agent.
- Attack surface: 8.9% of sampled Muse requests hit sensitive endpoints. Most were forms, but they also included logins, payments and account creation (Help Net Security).
- Structured access: Shopify's
get_checkout,update_checkoutandcomplete_checkouttools let agents work through structured APIs instead of scraping pages or reading screenshots (TechCrunch).
Read the full section
- Detection: Muse does not identify itself as an agent. 99.3% of sampled Muse requests came from cloud or CDN networks (Cloudflare 81.2%, Fastly 18.1%), so filters that trust home-ISP traffic will miss it (PPC Land).
- Attack surface: 8.9% of sampled Muse requests hit sensitive endpoints. Most were forms, but they also included logins, payments and account creation (Help Net Security).
- Structured access: Shopify's
get_checkout,update_checkoutandcomplete_checkouttools let agents work through structured APIs instead of scraping pages or reading screenshots (TechCrunch). Shopify's Universal Commerce Protocol, built with Google, supports MCP, AP2 and A2A (TrueProfit).
Claims and evidence
- "Agentic traffic tripled": DataDome's total is a 4.7x rise.
- Download pace: these are Sensor Tower estimates for the US.
- Blocking: Yelp admits only agents that pay for a data license (The Tech Buzz). Reports say Amazon has blocked Muse since September 20 (Pillitteri).
Read the full section
- "Agentic traffic tripled": DataDome's total is a 4.7x rise. The "more than tripled" figure (to 38.7 million requests) applies only when Muse is excluded (PPC Land). DataDome sells bot management and does not disclose how big its network is, how the sample was drawn, or how it identifies Muse.
- Download pace: these are Sensor Tower estimates for the US. They coincided with Muse taking up to 50% of Meta's own promotional ("house") ad impressions (9to5Mac).
- Blocking: Yelp admits only agents that pay for a data license (The Tech Buzz). Reports say Amazon has blocked Muse since September 20 (Pillitteri).
Context and prior work
- The Comet case began in November 2025 and won Amazon an injunction from the district court in March 2026 (CNBC).
- The appeals court's narrow reading of the CFAA rests on the Supreme Court's Van Buren decision (PYMNTS).
- Earlier disputes were over crawlers collecting training data. Today's agents click through pages, fill in forms and complete purchases (The Tech Buzz).
Limitations, safety and contested findings
- Muse's network origin is disputed. Profound Research (Oct 11) says Muse routes through residential connections. DataDome found the opposite (PPC Land).
- The legal status differs from MIT's account. MIT describes Amazon as appealing a judge's ruling.
- Possible harms to humans are predictions, not measurements.
Read the full section
- Muse's network origin is disputed. Profound Research (Oct 11) says Muse routes through residential connections. DataDome found the opposite (PPC Land).
- The legal status differs from MIT's account. MIT describes Amazon as appealing a judge's ruling. The reviewed sources instead show an appeals-court loss for Amazon in August and a denied rehearing in September (Courthouse News). MIT also reports Amazon's argument that agents make it harder to tell human ad views from bot ones.
- Possible harms to humans are predictions, not measurements. Examples are customer-service queues overwhelmed by agents (Ethan Mollick's forecast), different prices shown to different agents, and more frequent human-verification checks (MIT Technology Review).
Business and practitioner implications
- Block agents (Amazon, Delta), charge for access (Yelp), or build structured agent checkouts (Shopify).
- Security teams: filtering by IP address no longer separates agents from other traffic. Watch behavior at forms, logins and payment pages instead.
- Agent builders: working through WebMCP or UCP reduces the risk of being blocked compared with scraping. Undeclared agents invite blocking and ad-fraud disputes.
Read the full section
- Merchants: pick one approach on purpose. Block agents (Amazon, Delta), charge for access (Yelp), or build structured agent checkouts (Shopify). After the Ninth Circuit ruling, CFAA claims are a weak tool for blocking agents (eMarketer).
- Security teams: filtering by IP address no longer separates agents from other traffic. Watch behavior at forms, logins and payment pages instead.
- Agent builders: working through WebMCP or UCP reduces the risk of being blocked compared with scraping. Undeclared agents invite blocking and ad-fraud disputes.