The 9 Stages of AI Agent Adoption, Explained
Greg IsenbergGreg IsenbergKey takeaways
Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse from shopping on its site, while Delta rejects outside booking agents and Yelp allows agent access through paid data licensing. The conflict reflects both legitimate concerns about authorization and support costs and the threat agents pose to ad and upsell revenue.
Agents compare readable product facts and can abandon businesses whose checkout fails, so blanket blocking may send customers elsewhere; businesses can instead set different permissions for research, preparation and payment. The proposed market path runs from blocking and workarounds toward trusted identity and payment intermediaries, agent-oriented shopping and eventually ads, while startup opportunities include vertical agent connections, mistake insurance and traffic analytics.
Video Flow
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The opening conflict and three camps
Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse, Delta rejects outside booking agents, and Yelp permits agent access through paid data licensing. Other companies fall between blocking and welcoming: Zillow welcomes agents for real customers but sometimes blocks them accidentally, while Walmart called Muse failures on its site an accident despite partnering with Meta.
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An agent reads, researches, prepares and pays
An agent is a customer with a credit card who reads product details, prices, shipping costs and return policies rather than visual design. In the air-purifier-filter example, the customer gives it a goal, rules and a spending limit; the trust ladder runs from research to prepare to pay, and checkout failures can send an agent to another supplier.
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Why businesses block agents
Agents can create support burdens or unauthorized-purchase and fraud risks, and some apparent agents are scrapers. They also bypass sponsored listings, airline upgrades, baggage offers and card promotions; Amazon and Delta are building their own agents, reflecting a preference for agents they control rather than a rejection of agents altogether.
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The major players’ strategic bets
Amazon seeks to keep shopping inside its store and assistant, while Meta wants businesses to admit agents into apps people already use; Walmart’s partnership with Muse offers a new channel against Amazon. OpenAI is placing checkout inside conversations, Google is combining agents and payments with Gemini while protecting search advertising, Shopify aims to distribute merchants across AI channels, and Visa, Mastercard and Cloudflare are pursuing trusted-agent infrastructure.
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The Mint and Plaid precedent
Banks initially fought Mint’s access to account data, but Plaid built a connection between apps and banks; banks then moved from blocking to signing deals and charging for access. This precedent informs the prediction that agent identity and payment infrastructure could become a trusted middle layer.
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Nine proposed stages of the agent market
The proposed progression begins with blocking and an arms race of workarounds, then splits between sales businesses that welcome agents, data businesses that charge for access, and large companies that build their own. Later stages include trusted agent identity and payments, customer gains for businesses that accept agents, competition to make products easier for agents to buy, advertising within agent recommendations, and agent sales becoming ordinary; the stages may overlap, and the forecast remains uncertain.
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Five business actions to prepare
Businesses can test buying questions from their support inbox with multiple agents, inspect accidental bot blocking, and put compatibility, total price, delivery and returns in plain text. They can also make advantages such as faster delivery readable and set permissions by trust rung, allowing research and cart-building while adding checks before payment, especially for large orders.
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Startup opportunities between agents and businesses
Suggested opportunities include agent-readiness services for a specific industry, trusted agent connections tailored to one vertical, insurance for mistakes that currently make businesses wary, and analytics that distinguish agent visits and reveal why agents leave. A specialist supplier may also benefit when agents make its narrow expertise easier to find; tactics for gaming AI recommendations are less durable than reliable products and delivery.
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Closing judgment on safe access
Some blocks are justified until businesses can verify customer authorization, but they need a plan for safely admitting agents rather than treating present risk as a permanent reason to refuse them. Businesses can build their own agents, set limits for outside agents and reject unsafe or unprofitable orders; making offers easy for agents to understand can help capture customers competitors may not see.
Tools & Resources
The shopping agent Amazon blocks from browsing and checking out on its site.
The retailer blocks Meta Muse from shopping on its site.
The airline treats outside booking agents as unauthorized automated activity.
- 01The airline treats outside booking agents as unauthorized automated activity.02:41
The platform permits agent access through its paid data licensing program.
- 01The platform permits agent access through its paid data licensing program.02:57
The real estate platform welcomes agents acting for customers, though anti-scraping tools sometimes block them.
- 01The real estate platform welcomes agents acting for customers, though anti-scraping tools sometimes block them.03:10
The retailer partnered with Muse and called reported Muse failures an accident.
Meta is working with Stripe and others on an open standard for agents and businesses to communicate.
- 01Meta is working with Stripe and others on an open standard for agents and businesses to communicate.04:10
The commerce platform lets merchants sell through AI channels.
The payments company is building ways to recognize trusted agents.
The payments company is building ways to recognize trusted agents.
Amazon’s own shopping assistant, contrasted with its blocking of outside agents.
- 01Amazon’s own shopping assistant, contrasted with its blocking of outside agents.11:40
Delta’s own AI concierge, contrasted with its rejection of outside booking agents.
- 01Delta’s own AI concierge, contrasted with its rejection of outside booking agents.11:43
Named as an example of an agent provider that could sit between stores and customers.
Customers can buy from Etsy and Shopify stores without leaving the conversation.
Etsy stores can be purchased from within ChatGPT conversations.
- 01Etsy stores can be purchased from within ChatGPT conversations.15:08
Google is building agents and payments into Gemini while protecting its advertising business.
- 01Google is building agents and payments into Gemini while protecting its advertising business.15:21
Cloudflare works with Visa and Mastercard on trusted agents and aims to help agents access businesses.
The personal-finance service accessed bank account data and analytics before banks resisted that access.
- 01The personal-finance service accessed bank account data and analytics before banks resisted that access.17:16
Plaid built connections between apps and banks after banks resisted services such as Mint.
The forecast cites Google testing ads in AI search as an early sign of advertising in agent-mediated discovery.
- 01The forecast cites Google testing ads in AI search as an early sign of advertising in agent-mediated discovery.20:52
The creator notes that some of the startup ideas may have appeared on IdeaBrowser.
- 01The creator notes that some of the startup ideas may have appeared on IdeaBrowser.26:24