JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, Charles Schwab, Neiman Marcus, and Kohl's have begun blocking third-party AI personal agents — tools like Meta's Muse — from accessing customer accounts and completing purchases on their platforms, even as consumer demand for such services climbs and rivals like Walmart move in the opposite direction.
The standoff marks an early test of the so-called agentic AI era, in which software agents act autonomously on behalf of users to find better savings rates, hunt for deals, and cancel subscriptions — tasks that increasingly put them in direct conflict with businesses that control the underlying platforms.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank currently blocks external AI agents from operating on behalf of retail customers, citing security risks. Reports of AI agents going rogue in customer accounts last week added urgency to the debate, drawing calls from Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Bernie Sanders for legislation governing bot activity.
Walmart, by contrast, announced last week that it is opening its platform to AI agents customers prefer to use. "We price products, not people, so the prices that an AI agent sees are the same prices that a human would see on Walmart.com, with applicable offers and fees shown before purchase," the company said in a blog post.
A recent audit of 51 large U.S. retailers' published access rules, conducted by identity-verification company Billions Network and affiliated company AmanTrue, found that only 11 have taken a deliberate position on AI agents. Five — including Amazon, Kohl's, and Neiman Marcus — explicitly restrict them, while 37 block shopping agents largely by accident through older bot rules written for web scrapers. None has a mechanism allowing a verified agent to complete a purchase.
Evin McMullen, co-founder and CEO of Billions Network and AmanTrue, said "most of the retailers in our audit have not made a decision about AI agents at all." The analysis of published access rules comes with the caveat that those rules are not proof of technical enforcement.
Michael Abbott, global banking lead at Accenture, said the blocking strategy is unlikely to succeed over time. "If customers explicitly authorize an AI agent to act on their behalf, that's ultimately an extension of customer choice. The more important question isn't whether institutions can block agents, but whether they can create a secure and trusted way for them to engage," Abbott said.
Accenture research found that 65% of consumers are open to using a GPT-like financial assistant through a generative AI platform or digital wallet, and 71% would welcome an AI assistant embedded within their primary bank's mobile app.
"We've seen this movie before — online banking, mobile banking and digital wallets," Abbott said. "Customers tend to gravitate toward experiences that reduce friction and save time. The institutions that win are usually the ones that find a way to participate safely rather than resist the change."
Abbott also noted that consumer appetite for control remains high. Accenture's research found that 82% of users want to approve every AI action, and 79% want the ability to immediately pause or stop AI activity — suggesting demand for convenience does not come at the cost of oversight.
Mike Danford, owner and chief revenue officer of Adverio, which manages Amazon, Walmart, and Target marketplace operations for e-commerce brands, framed the dispute in starker terms. "Amazon blocked Muse and other outside agents, but its own Buy for Me feature uses Amazon's agent on other brands' sites. Amazon doesn't appear worried about the agent. It's worried about who holds the data," Danford said.
Amazon pushed back on that characterization. "We think it's fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate," an Amazon spokesperson said, adding that the company has requested Meta remove Amazon from the Muse experience.
With pending bot legislation, an unresolved audit landscape, and Walmart's open-door posture applying competitive pressure, how banks and retailers navigate the agent question over the next 12 to 24 months is likely to reshape the terms on which consumers interact with commercial platforms entirely.
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