AI agents that shop on a person's behalf are already visiting online stores in volume. DataDome, which runs bot protection for websites, counted 12.5 million requests in August 2026 from AI agents that work through a browser, and 58.2 million in September, according to its AI Traffic Report Q3 2026, published October 15. Meta's Muse became fully available only on September 22, and without it the September total was still 38.7 million, about three times August's.
These visits look different from the shoppers and crawlers a store is used to. Each Muse user's agent runs in its own cloud virtual machine, so DataDome found that 99.3% of sampled Muse requests came from cloud and CDN infrastructure rather than from phones or home connections, and Muse does not identify itself as an AI agent. A bot filter that trusts home internet traffic and challenges data-center traffic treats a customer's agent the same way it treats a scraper. When Jefferies pointed Muse at several hundred leading US shopping and travel sites, about a third blocked it and another third challenged or limited it, according to its October 8 note. DataDome sells tools to manage this traffic, and its counts cover only the sites on its own network.
On October 21, 2026, three companies made their own answer to these agents public. Walmart launched Agent Gateway, which lets approved AI agents search Walmart and Sam's Club inventory and buy for their users over the Model Context Protocol, TechCrunch reported. Walmart's terms for agents say an agent may not act beyond what the shopper intends or see the shopper's payment information, that Walmart's returns process applies when an agent gets an order wrong, and that agents breaking the terms will be blocked. Agent Profiles, rolling out in November 2026, will give each agent its own profile in a customer's account with a per-purchase approval or a spending limit. Amazon took the opposite position on September 20, when it began blocking Muse from shopping on Amazon.com.
Commerce, the parent company of BigCommerce, and Cloudflare made the call for every eligible BigCommerce store. They turned on WebMCP by default, which gives a browser agent a way to ask the store directly for its products, prices, sizes and stock, build a cart, and hand the shopper a link to check out on the merchant's own site. Merchants can switch it off in a new settings menu that also manages Commerce's other AI connections. The WebMCP specification is still a draft published by a W3C community group.
Anthropic added another agent of this kind on October 21 with a research preview of Claude Duet, an agent for professionals and small business owners that works from a virtual machine with its own browser. It is available by waitlist to Pro and Max subscribers in the U.S. Before it pays for anything, Claude Duet shows the user what it is about to buy and waits for approval, then pays with a virtual card through Stripe's Link wallet or checks out with Shopify's Shop Pay.
On a BigCommerce store, the platform has now decided how these agents are received. On other stores that decision often sits with the bot protection in front of the site. Ask whoever manages it what happens when an AI agent arrives from a cloud address and tries to open a product page or add an item to the cart, and settle on the answer you want before Black Friday on November 27, 2026.
Common questions
How much AI agent traffic are online stores seeing?
On DataDome's network, AI agents that browse sites on a person's behalf made 58.2 million requests in September 2026, up from 12.5 million in August. Meta's Muse made up a third of the September total after becoming fully available on September 22.
Why do bot filters block AI shopping agents?
Agents such as Muse and Claude Duet run in cloud virtual machines, so their requests come from data-center addresses rather than shoppers' own devices. DataDome found that 99.3% of sampled Muse requests came from cloud and CDN infrastructure, and Muse does not identify itself as an AI agent.
What did Walmart and BigCommerce launch on October 21, 2026?
Walmart launched Agent Gateway, which lets approved AI agents search Walmart and Sam's Club inventory and buy for their users under terms Walmart sets. Commerce and Cloudflare turned on WebMCP by default for eligible BigCommerce stores, so browser agents can search a store's catalog and build a cart.
Can a BigCommerce merchant turn WebMCP off?
Yes. Merchants can switch it off in a new settings menu that also manages Commerce's other AI connections.
Sources
Help Net Security: Half the AI bot traffic hammering your website comes from Meta
Yahoo Finance: Meta's Muse AI agent blocked by one-third of websites tested, Jefferies says
TechCrunch: While Amazon blocks AI agents, Walmart rolls out the welcome mat
W3C Web Machine Learning Community Group: WebMCP draft specification