THE CRUNCH
The RealReal is updating its bot defence system to make it much harder for AI shopping agents to use its site, days after a report showed how Meta's Muse agent could be abused to block other shoppers. On the secondhand luxury retailer's website, an item goes on hold for 20 minutes once placed in a shopping cart, unavailable to anyone else. The Verge found that Muse could be instructed to keep re-adding listings as each hold expired, tying up products for hours or longer.
After the report, chief technology officer Luke Friang said in an email that the company had addressed the flagged use case. The new bot defence configuration makes it much more difficult for all agents to log in, add items to a cart and check out, though agents will still be able to surface listings and direct Muse users to product pages. Friang added that the company will keep strengthening protections as AI-powered shopping evolves.
The episode lands as agent-driven shopping takes off. Meta said in its Q3 earnings call that shopping is the most common use case for Muse so far, with purchases averaging over $200, and that 10 million people in the US downloaded the app within 40 days. Muse can re-add items endlessly, a chore no human shopper would bother with, which is exactly what made the reserve system so easy to exploit.