War on Agents

The War on Agents

Big tech spent two years promising agents that book trips and buy groceries. Now the places where those errands happen are deciding whether to let them in. Greg Isenberg calls this the war on agents. Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse agent from its store, Delta says it works with zero outside agents for shopping or booking, and Yelp lets agents in only through paid data licensing. Others, such as Zillow and Walmart, block some agents by accident through old bot defenses.

Key Drivers

1. Real risk on the payment rung

Wrong orders, unproven authorization and scrapers posing as agents are genuine problems. The customer calls the store, not the AI company.

2. Margin that lives on the way to the sale

Agents skip sponsored products and upsells such as seat upgrades and bags, often the highest-margin parts of a transaction.

3. Fear of a new intermediary

If everyone shops through an agent built by Meta or OpenAI, that company sits between the store and the customer. The same companies blocking outside agents are building their own, such as Amazon's Rufus.

Who's Saying This

Greg Isenberg (Startup Ideas Podcast):

"Are you protecting the customer or are you protecting a habit you'd like the customer to keep"

How It May Play Out

Isenberg uses the Mint and Plaid history as a template and lays out nine stages: blocking, an arms race, a market split, a trusted middle layer for agent identity and payments, welcoming businesses winning share, competition for agents (including "SEO but for agents"), the return of ads inside agent recommendations, and finally selling to agents becoming normal. He expects the stages to blend, with companies at different stages at the same time.

Implications

For Businesses

• Test real buying questions with several agents and see where they fail
• Review bot protection so blocking is a decision, not an accident
• Publish price, delivery, compatibility and returns in plain text
• Set different permissions for research, cart building and payment

For Builders

• Vertical trust layers, insurance for agent mistakes and analytics for agent traffic are open opportunities

Timeline

Related Reading

• Agentic Commerce - What selling to agents involves
• Universal Commerce Protocol - A standard for agent checkout
• Greg Isenberg - Voice behind the nine stages