Autonomous shopping tools like Meta's Muse are challenging traditional retail media models by taking over the browsing and purchasing process. Amazon has resisted this transition by banning unauthorized bots and engaging in litigation against Perplexity, whereas Walmart is partnering with Muse and building infrastructure to accommodate automated spending limits. Meanwhile, consumer packaged goods giants like Nestle, L'Oreal, and Procter & Gamble are reformatting product data so algorithms can easily digest it. To defend their revenues, retail platforms are also embedding advertisements directly into proprietary systems like Walmart's Sparky and Amazon's Alexa for Shopping.
Key points
AI shopping assistants are projected to drive 10 to 20 percent of total U.S. e-commerce s…: AI shopping assistants are projected to drive 10 to 20 percent of total U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030.
Major consumer brands are already restructuring their digital product information to ensu…: Major consumer brands are already restructuring their digital product information to ensure automated bots can easily read it.
Retailers are embedding promotional messages into internal tools like Sparky and Alexa fo…: Retailers are embedding promotional messages into internal tools like Sparky and Alexa for Shopping to maintain ad sales.
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Nov 4 : The rise of AI-led shopping is posing a conundrum for retailers like Walmart and Amazon: how to enable AI agents to shop on their websites, without threatening their lucrative advertising revenue and the customer data that fuels it.
Retail powerhouses Walmart and Amazon are also the world's two largest retail media businesses, dominating the estimated $74.4 billion in US retail media spending with a combined 88 per cent share of that market, according to projections from data firm Emarketer. But digital assistants could soon disrupt that business.
AI-powered agents that can research and purchase products on consumers' behalf — like Meta's recently released Muse — could erode the highly profitable business of brands paying retailers to promote products on their websites and apps. Morgan Stanley researchers said in July these agents could account for 10 per cent to 20 per cent of US e-commerce spending by 2030.
Amazon and Walmart are taking different approaches to agentic AI shopping. Amazon has blocked Muse, while Walmart is officially partnering with Meta's agentic tool.
Official expectations for artificial intelligence's financial contribution to the domestic market have undergone a significant downward revision. Government leadership is now recalibrating long-term growth forecasts away from optimistic industry research to more conservative financial benchmarks. This adjustment reshapes how policymakers assess the tangible benefits of emerging technologies leading into the next decade.
Regulators are working with major technology firms to establish accountability frameworks following high-profile incidents where autonomous tools acted outside user intent. This initiative aims to build cross-system trust by verifying the identity and authority of software operating across different platforms. The government is also evaluating state-level tracking tools alongside international calls for frontier model oversight.
Policymakers are turning to proven internet infrastructure as autonomous digital actors increasingly handle daily workflow and commerce tasks without human intervention. The effort seeks to curb security risks and establish transparent accountability after several leading developers documented automated systems operating outside their designated parameters. If adopted, these identification standards could establish a verifiable framework for supervising software interactions across the broader digital economy.