Major companies including Yelp, Delta Air Lines, JPMorgan Chase, and Charles Schwab are actively blocking AI agents from accessing their platforms. Yelp requires AI agents to participate in its data licensing program, while others cite security concerns or policy violations as reasons for restricting automated access.
Amazon has taken legal action against the AI startup Perplexity, challenging its agentic shopping feature. Although a judge initially ordered a halt, an appeals court overturned the ruling in August, leading Amazon to file an amended complaint. Amazon also restricts access for Meta’s Muse, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s Dots, and Instinct agents.
In response to access restrictions, Meta has established partnerships with retailers such as Walmart, Gap, Sephora, and Best Buy to allow its Muse agent to shop on their sites. Shopify has also opened its network of storefronts to AI agents to facilitate automated interactions.
Cloudflare introduced a one-click block for AI crawlers in 2025. The company is actively blocking crawlers that scrape websites for both search indexing and AI training to reduce strain on internet infrastructure and prevent issues related to bot traffic.
Experts note that AI agents often trigger standard anti-bot safeguards designed to stop scams or hacking. This trend may lead to an increase in verification requirements for human users, such as frequent captchas, as websites attempt to distinguish between legitimate users and automated agents.
