Bernstein: aggregators may be justified blocking AI agents

The Bernstein note lands as AI agents move from demo to daily habit. Meta's Muse assistant reached 2.5 million daily active users in North America within six weeks of launch, and a quarter of its weekly users had tried agentic shopping, with average purchases above $200 including travel bookings. That is exactly the behaviour aggregators fear: if a consumer can ask an assistant to find and buy something, the platform that used to own the search and checkout step can be reduced to a supplier. Amazon's decision to block external agents while promoting Alexa, and similar restrictions by JPMorgan and Charles Schwab over liability, show that the default response so far is to keep agents out. Bernstein's view is that this is defensible for now, because dominant platforms have little incentive to accelerate rivals while building their own AI experiences. Smaller players may see the opposite calculus, using agent partnerships to win share. But the analysts also flag the limit: blocking is unlikely to hold if consumers keep preferring AI-driven transactions, and platforms with exclusive inventory, logistics and strong customer relationships have the most room to delay. The outcome, they suggest, will be settled by consumer behaviour rather than by corporate policy.