The RealReal Tightens Bot Defenses After AI Agent Exploited Its Shopping Cart Hold System
After Meta’s Muse repeatedly renewed 20-minute item holds, The RealReal reconfigured its defenses to block AI agents from logging in, adding items, and checking out. Agents can still surface listings and direct shoppers to product pages.
The RealReal, a secondhand luxury fashion consignment retailer, announced in October 2026 that it is updating its bot defense system to make it significantly harder for AI agents to shop on its site.
The move came days after The Verge reported that Meta’s AI agent, Muse, could be used to exploit The RealReal’s item reserve system. On the retailer’s site, placing an item in a shopping cart puts it “on hold” for 20 minutes, making it unavailable to other customers. The Verge demonstrated that Muse could be instructed to continuously re-add listings to a cart as soon as each 20-minute hold expired — effectively locking other shoppers out of purchasing specific items for hours or longer.
Following that report, The RealReal’s chief technology officer Luke Friang said in an email that the company had addressed the Muse use case. The updated bot defense configuration now makes it much more difficult for AI agents to log in, add items to cart, and check out, Friang said. Agents will still be able to surface The RealReal listings and direct users to product pages. Friang added that the company will continue to strengthen protections as AI-powered online shopping evolves. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident highlights a broader tension emerging between AI shopping agents and online retailers. Meta has described shopping as the most common use case for Muse so far, with average purchases exceeding $200. The company reported that 10 million people in the US downloaded the app within 40 days. Other retailers, including Amazon, have already moved to block agents from shopping on their platforms, citing potential disruption to advertising revenue and customer relationships.
Unlike human shoppers, AI agents have no practical limit on how long they will perform repetitive tasks — a dynamic that could complicate systems retailers designed with human behavior in mind. As millions of consumers gain access to these tools, retailers may need to revisit assumptions built into their platforms.