Agent Commerce

AI agents such as Muse can now shop on a consumer's behalf, browsing and purchasing products autonomously. CNBC examines what this shift could mean for retail stocks, as automated buying may reshape how customers find products, compress margins, and reorder winners and losers across the e-commerce and retail sector.

A HUMAN analysis finds Meta's Muse agent accounts for 72% of AI agent requests, with 84% of those targeting product and search pages. Muse is 25% more likely than other agents to reach checkout, raising questions about whether analytics tools can distinguish its traffic from human shoppers, with implications for e-commerce measurement and ad targeting.

AI shopping agents, with Muse cited as an example, are being discussed as a force changing the retail stock landscape. The claim is that software that shops on consumers' behalf could shift which retail companies win and lose value as commerce increasingly routes through AI intermediaries. Details on specific market moves or analyst positions are not provided, and the report offers no evidence beyond the headline claim.

A developer describes converting a WordPress online store into an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, allowing an AI agent to operate the business — processing tasks with explicit human permission at each step. The write-up covers the open-source setup and coding involved. It is drawing attention among developers interested in AI automation of commerce and what it means for handing routine business operations to autonomous agents.