Consumer AI agents could upend online shopping - but who really wins?

Investing.com -- Consumer artificial intelligence agents could reshape online shopping, payments and financial services, but their success will depend on how established companies respond, according to Bernstein. The rapid growth of Muse, which can compare products and quotes, call businesses, send emails, fill forms, manage inboxes, cancel subscriptions and negotiate for users, has fuelled speculation about an “iPhone moment” for consumer AI. OpenAI has launched Dots, while Google is expected to improve Spark. Amazon blocked Muse within two weeks of launch, citing lack of prior notification, failure to identify itself, apparent collection of customer credentials and access to account pages and order histories. Others, including Shopify, Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Wayfair, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty, Fanatics, Expedia and Instacart, have partnered with Muse for shopping and checkout. Payments use Stripe’s Link, one-time virtual cards or Shop Pay; PayPal integration is announced but not live, while Meta plans a transaction fee. Bernstein expects selective access rather than blanket blocking. Muse is developing API connectors with retailers, although it currently mainly browses websites, fills forms and prepares orders for user confirmation. Meta received more than 1,500 developer applications in under a week, but OpenAI’s Instant Checkout, despite partnerships with Walmart, Etsy, Instacart and more than one million Shopify merchants, illustrates the challenges. Cloudflare says AI-agent requests on its network rose over 1,700% in a year, while human traffic in heavily crawled retail and financial-services categories fell as much as 40%. More verification, human checkpoints and differentiated access to catalogues, prices and accounts could follow. Agents could gain traction by simplifying high-friction tasks such as insurance, medical and school forms, travel planning and coordinating tickets, reservations, transport and shared costs. U.S. travellers view 277 pages of travel content and spend about five hours researching trips in the 45 days before booking. Silicon Valley agent Instinct says around 40% of users provide a credit card within three weeks and it handles about $1 billion in annualised transactions, roughly half in travel, though its affluent, tech-forward users may not represent the broader population. Business applications could prove more monetisable.

Bernstein sees payments as a potential winner - more online transactions, including smaller purchases, could benefit Visa, Mastercard and processors Stripe, Adyen and Checkout. 

PayPal wallets could offer trust, protection, savings, rewards and payment optimisation. Affirm and Klarna may benefit from dynamic underwriting, interest-bearing loans for near-prime and subprime borrowers, zero-interest prime loans and clearer terms.