AgentPlays
Amazon blocks Grok Bot from ordering, and Elon Musk says to have it shop somewhere else
Grok Bot users say Amazon is blocking their bots from placing orders. Late on Oct 14 ET, @niccruzpatane posted a screenshot of the Amazon page their bot hit: "Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed." Elon Musk replied on X: "Just ask Grok @Bot to buy what you want someplace else and get a better deal." In an earlier reply, Musk wrote, "My Bot bought LEGO directly from the LEGO website no problem." On Oct 15, Musk added, "Maybe we should start a competitor to Amazon." Amazon's robots.txt also disallows GrokBot, xAI-Grok and Grok-DeepSearch, alongside agents from OpenAI, Anthropic and others. Cybernews reported in September that Amazon had blocked Meta's Muse shopping agent.
How you’d use it: If your agent hits Amazon's block page, ask it to compare prices and buy straight from the brand's own store or another retailer, and have it show you the seller and total before it pays.
Sources
- Original source: Elon Musk on X ↗
- @niccruzpatane's screenshot of the Amazon block ↗
- Musk on buying LEGO from the LEGO website ↗
- Musk: "Maybe we should start a competitor to Amazon" ↗
- Amazon's robots.txt ↗
- Cybernews on Amazon's AI agent ban list ↗