Amazon vs Shopify on AI shopping agents: why Shopify bets on Muse while Amazon faces the innovator's dilemma
yenkel · x · 2026-09-30
The author applies incentive-first (Munger-style) analysis to Amazon blocking and Shopify enabling the AI shopping agent Muse:
- Ads are the biggest disrupted business: agents act like a "smart browser" making decisions with no eyes on the screen; platforms lose eyeballs and agents become the new aggregators
- Shopping/logistics margins and pricing are the second-order impact. The author even speculates agents could generate on-demand scroll feeds aggregating products across stores, responding to Ben Thompson's argument that people like to scroll
- Shopify's bet is positively asymmetric — its model has little to lose
- Amazon faces the classic innovator's dilemma: options include lowering costs, selling ads to users or agents, or building its own agent
Bottom line: agents are displacing e-commerce platforms as the new aggregation layer.
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