{"slug": "the-realreal-wont-let-ai-agents-hog-designer-clothing", "title": "The RealReal won’t let AI agents hog designer clothing", "summary": "The RealReal updated its bot defense configuration so that AI agents can no longer log in, add items to cart, and check out, after The Verge showed Meta's Muse agent could hold listings indefinitely by re-adding them to a cart each time the site's 20-minute reserve expired. Chief technology officer Luke Friang said the company had addressed the Muse use case flagged in the story, while agents can still surface listings and direct Muse users to product pages. Meta, which said on its Q3 earnings call that shopping was Muse's most common use case with purchases averaging over $200 and 10 million US downloads in 40 days, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.", "body_md": "The RealReal, a secondhand luxury fashion consignment retailer, said it’s updating its bot defense system, effectively making it harder for AI agents to shop on its site.\n\n# The RealReal won’t let AI agents hog designer clothing\n\nPrevious reporting by The Verge found that Meta’s Muse could be used to effectively block other shoppers from purchasing items for hours.\n\nThe change comes days after *The Verge* [reported](https://www.theverge.com/report/1015811/ai-shopping-agents-blocked-amazon-the-realreal-target-meta-muse) that an AI agent could be used to take advantage of The RealReal’s item reserve system. On the retailer’s website, an item goes “on hold” and is unavailable for other customers to buy for 20 minutes once it’s placed in a user’s shopping cart. Using Meta’s Muse, *The Verge* was able to instruct the AI agent to continuously re-add The RealReal listings in a shopping cart as soon as the 20-minute hold had expired, effectively blocking other shoppers from purchasing products for hours or longer.\n\nAfter publication, chief technology officer Luke Friang said in an email that the company had addressed the Muse use case flagged by *The Verge*’s story. The RealReal’s bot defense configuration now makes it much more difficult for all agents to log in, add items to cart, and check out, Friang said. Agents will still be able to surface listings from The RealReal and direct Muse users to product pages, Friang said, adding that the company will continue to strengthen protections as AI-powered online shopping evolves.\n\nMeta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.\n\nTechnology companies are selling agents as personalized assistants for billions of people — always-on, compliant entities that will schedule meetings, throw parties, and purchase things for human users. So far, agents and shopping seem to go hand in hand; Meta [said](https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/content_files/META-Q3-2026-Earnings-Call-Transcript.pdf) in its Q3 earnings call this month that it was the most common use case for Muse so far, and that purchases were over $200 on average. Muse has been a hit for Meta and could signal a turning point for AI agents: The company said 10 million people in the US [had downloaded the app](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/20/metas-muse-hits-10m-u-s-downloads-in-40-days-a-milestone-reached-by-only-11-other-apps/) in 40 days.\n\nBut robots shopping for things instead of humans has the potential to [upend the balance of the web](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1005726/doordash-ai-agentic-food-delivery-bites) as we know it. For one, if humans stop visiting websites directly and instead access the web through chatbots, businesses become one step removed from their customers. Retailers — [most notably Amazon](https://www.theverge.com/tech/998078/amazon-blocks-meta-muse-ai-agent-shopping) — have recognized that reality could disrupt their bottom line, especially advertising revenue, and have blocked agents from shopping on their sites.\n\nAn influx of AI agents accessing consumer platforms could also break or complicate even the most unexpected things shoppers take for granted, like the reserve system of a used clothing website. There is, of course, a realistic limit to how long a person is willing to spend adding and re-adding designer clothing to their shopping cart if they’re indecisive. An agent in contrast does not care. It is perhaps precisely the type of busywork a fashion-forward person might pay an actual personal assistant to do on their behalf. Now, a capability like this is at the fingertips of millions of consumers, and they are just beginning to learn how to take advantage of it. Retailers, too, are playing catch-up.\n\n**Follow topics and authors** from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-realreal-wont-let-ai-agents-hog-designer-clothing", "canonical_source": "https://www.theverge.com/news/1018713/meta-muse-agentic-shopping-ai-the-realreal", "published_at": "2026-10-26 17:30:55+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-26 17:44:52.155254+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-products"], "entities": ["The RealReal", "Meta", "Muse", "Luke Friang", "The Verge", "Amazon"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-realreal-wont-let-ai-agents-hog-designer-clothing", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-realreal-wont-let-ai-agents-hog-designer-clothing.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-realreal-wont-let-ai-agents-hog-designer-clothing.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-realreal-wont-let-ai-agents-hog-designer-clothing.jsonld"}}