ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood has publicly backed analyst Nick Grous’s assessment that Amazon’s refusal to allow Meta’s Muse agent access sets up “a great test” of customer loyalty and the future of agentic commerce.
Wood offered a simple but pointed response on X, saying “Indeed” in reply to Grous’s analysis, signaling her firm’s alignment with the view that the standoff carries significant strategic implications.
Grous laid out the core tension on ARK’s podcast released on September 26, arguing that Amazon is deliberately blocking Muse to shield its advertising business, which he described as “extremely profitable” at $70 billion.
Amazon’s advertising unit generated $19.8 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2026, representing a 26% increase year over year, underlining just how much is at stake in this dispute.
Grous explained the fundamental threat agents like Muse pose to ad-dependent platforms, saying “If it’s agents that are crawling your site, then the ads are meaningless.”
He added that Amazon wants to “own the customer relationship” rather than allow autonomous agents to browse its platform freely and bypass its commercial infrastructure.
The contrast with Shopify is stark, as the e-commerce platform opened up its Shop Pay integration to Muse and allowed the agent to index its full shop catalog, welcoming the technology rather than resisting it.
A significant list of major retailers, including American Eagle (NYSE: AEO), Walmart, Wayfair, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Fanatics, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Michael Kors, have all agreed to let Muse operate on their platforms.
Grous warned that Amazon will face mounting pressure to either join those retailers or explain to shareholders why it continues to hold out as Muse reshapes the online shopping landscape.
Amazon has stated that it blocked Muse specifically because Meta never obtained permission for the agent to access its site and because the agent failed to properly identify itself while browsing, raising concerns about customer credentials and data security.
Days after announcing the Muse block, Amazon opened its seller platform to Anthropic’s Claude, a company in which Amazon has invested $13 billion, with up to $20 billion more in funding tied to performance milestones.
ARK Invest itself sold 20,000 Amazon shares earlier this month, a transaction worth approximately $5.1 million, even as the firm separately projects that Amazon Web Services could become a “trillion-dollar-per-year” business.
The firm has been rotating into Meta instead, reflecting a broader strategic bet that Muse will continue to gain traction and fundamentally alter how consumers discover and purchase products online.
Amazon shares closed at $249.67 on Friday, up 0.12%, and edged slightly higher in extended trading, as investors continue to weigh the competitive and financial consequences of the platform’s stand against agentic commerce.
