For the past few months, Silicon Valley has been pushing AI agents and agentic commerce on consumers. While there are open questions found with what problems are being addressed by the technology, attention has turned to how industry giants from retail to finance are approaching AI agents. The (early) answer doesn’t look reassuring for Silicon Valley. Earlier this week, JPMorgan became the latest giant to pour cold water on agents. There are observations to be made as to how Silicon Valley will need to adapt its approach to AI agents.
We are at the point of AI mania where companies can no longer take years to demonstrate monetization plans for a new AI product. There is immense pressure to talk about monetization at nearly the same time a product is unveiled. Meta didn’t wait for more than three weeks of availability to say loudly, and even proudly, that it was going to monetize its new AI agent, Muse, by seeking a percentage of transactions run through the agent. Meta’s monetization strategy appears to have then dictated its marketing angle that Muse is a way for consumers to save money by handling commerce transactions.
Not long after Muse launched, Amazon blocked the agent. This led to a wave of criticism from Silicon Valley that suggested Amazon was scared and worried.
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