What's actually happening with AI agents at the front door

Amazon blocked Meta's new shopping agent, Muse, from its store less than two weeks after it launched. Amazon said apps that buy on a customer's behalf should "respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate." Meta, meanwhile, named Walmart, Sephora, Expedia, OpenTable and Shopify among its partners.

I spent years on the receiving end of requests, so I went looking for what has actually happened to businesses since customers started sending agents. There's less than the headlines suggest, but it's not nothing.

Muse launched on September 8. It's an assistant built to take actions for you: shop, book, fill in forms. Sensor Tower, an outside analytics firm, estimates millions of downloads in its first weeks. That's their estimate, not Meta's count.

Restaurants have seen it too. A diner's AI agent pinged Resy for a table hundreds of times every hour of the day, until Resy locked his account and then banned it. CNN reported it in September, and the account was later reinstated. Resy says it doesn't currently allow unapproved bots or agents on its platform.

The line in the CNN piece that sounded most like the host stands I've worked came from the COO of Jean-Georges Restaurants: "Not every interaction or task needs to be optimized."

Customers still want a way out to a person. In a Gartner survey of more than 3,500 customers, 87% said companies using generative AI for customer service must offer a way to reach a human. A separate Gartner survey of service leaders, run in fall 2025, found 85% are expanding what their human staff are responsible for, though 31% have made or plan frontline layoffs in response to AI.

The view from the desk is a little strange. Customers want a person when a company's AI answers, and some customers are now sending AI to ask the questions.

What I couldn't find is any number for how much of this traffic a normal business gets. Nobody publishes it. Some of it may run through partners like OpenTable, on the platform's terms. If it all ends up going through platforms, the platform decides. Whatever doesn't could reach your own phone line, forms and support chat.

The rules so far have come from platforms and big stores. Before you write your own, check whether the platforms your business books or sells through have said anything about customer agents, and what they allow.