AI agents were supposed to roam the internet for us. Now a growing list of major websites is turning them away. According to The Verge AI, people using Meta’s Muse, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s Dots and Instinct have recently hit blocks on top sites. Some of those sites are refusing agents on purpose. Others are catching them by accident.
This matters because the whole pitch for agents is that they can do anything you can do online. Every locked door chips away at that promise.
🚧 Who’s blocking, and why
The reasons fall into three groups, and they’re very different from each other:
- Money. Yelp told TechCrunch it only lets in agents that pay for its data licensing program. Amazon has blocked Perplexity’s shopping agent and sued the startup. It has also told Meta that Muse’s “continued access” breaks its site policies. Grok, Instinct’s agent and Dots reportedly can’t use Amazon either.
- Security. JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab confirmed they block agents from getting into accounts. Delta Air Lines won’t let agents book tickets for users.
- Collateral damage. Plenty of sites aren’t aiming at agents at all. Their anti-bot systems just can’t tell a helpful assistant from a scammer. Reddit users say Google flagged some Muse accounts for “suspicious activity.” Others couldn’t check out on Walmart, even though Walmart has a deal with Meta.
Some users also say Cars.com and Amtrak used to work and now don’t. That points to quiet blocking that nobody has announced.
💰 The real fight is over attention
The Amazon vs. Perplexity case shows what’s actually at stake. Amazon says companies buying on behalf of customers “should operate openly and respect service provider decisions whether or not to participate.” Perplexity’s reply was blunter. It said Amazon wants human eyeballs on its ads, and it called its agent an extension of the user. In Perplexity’s words, Amazon “does not believe in your right to hire labor, to have an assistant or an employee acting on your behalf.”
The courts haven’t settled it. A judge ordered Perplexity to stop, then an appeals court overturned that order in August. Amazon has since filed an amended complaint.
What stands out to me is that both sides are partly right. Agents really do skip the ads, upsells and product placement that pay for a lot of the web. A retailer that lets agents shop freely is giving up its storefront to a middleman it doesn’t control.
🤝 Two strategies: fight or partner
AI companies are splitting on how to handle this. Elon Musk’s response was to joke that he “should start a competitor to Amazon.” Meta went the other way. It signed partnerships with Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Best Buy and others so Muse can shop on their sites. Shopify has also opened its storefronts to agents.
Meta summed up its view this way:
“Turning away a personal agent means turning away the customer behind it.”
That’s the clearest sign of where things are going. The open web for agents is becoming a web of permissions. You’ll get in through licensing deals, partnerships and approved channels, not just by showing up with a browser.
📉 What it means for the big labs
Chris Canal, CEO of AI safety evaluator EquiStamp, told The Verge that the blocks “absolutely” hurt how people value companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. “If there are companies that are actively working to make that not happen, there are just fewer useful things the agents can do.”
Canal also predicts that the web gets more “annoying” for everyone. He expects human-verification hoops even on basic grocery sites. Cloudflare is already pushing in that direction. It launched a one-click AI crawler block in 2025 and now blocks crawlers that scrape for both search and AI training at the same time.
Take that as an informed read, not a proven forecast. Canal’s company evaluates AI systems, so he sees these failures up close. But no one can yet say how far the verification arms race will go.
🧭 What businesses should do now
- If you’re building on agents, don’t promise open-web coverage. Build on official APIs and partner integrations, and plan for sites to break without warning.
- If you run a website, decide on purpose. Blocking every agent may turn away real customers. Letting all of them in may drain your ad revenue. A licensing or partner tier, like Yelp’s, is a middle path.
- If you’re buying agent tools, ask vendors which sites they’re actually allowed to use. Don’t settle for which sites they can technically reach.
Agents won’t own the web by default. They’ll have to negotiate their way in, one deal at a time. The full report is at The Verge AI.