The RealReal tightens bot defenses against AI shopping agents

By Rebecca Stone

The RealReal, a secondhand luxury fashion consignment retailer, has tightened bot defenses after Meta’s Muse repeatedly exploited a 20-minute reserve system to hold designer clothing for hours.

Chief technology officer Luke Friang said the configuration “now makes it much more difficult for all agents” to complete three steps:

• Log in
• Add items to cart
• Check out

The stakes extend beyond one fashion site. The Verge reported that Amazon and other retailers have blocked shopping agents, particularly because agent-mediated purchases could separate businesses from direct customers and the advertising revenue tied to those visits.

How did the agent hold listings?

Earlier reporting by The Verge found that Meta’s Muse could block other shoppers from purchasing The RealReal’s inventory for hours. The demonstration came days after a separate Verge report that an AI agent could exploit the retailer’s reserve system.

On The RealReal’s website, an item goes “on hold” and blocks other customers from buying it once a shopper places it in a shopping cart. The lock lasts 20 minutes. The Verge instructed Muse to continuously re-add The RealReal listings whenever the hold expired.

The Verge reported that, by repeating the action, the agent kept products out of other shoppers’ reach for hours or longer. Its test exposed a gap between a system designed for an indecisive customer and a process that can run without human interruption.

The Verge noted that a person has a realistic limit on how long they will keep adding and re-adding designer clothing. An agent does not share that limit. The publication described the work as busywork a fashion-forward person might pay an actual personal assistant to perform on their behalf.

The Verge said the capability now sits at the fingertips of millions of consumers, who are just beginning to learn how to take advantage of it. Retailers, it added, are playing catch-up.

The Verge framed the issue as a potential shift in the web’s basic balance. Robots shopping for people could upend the relationship between consumers and the sites they visit. That makes The RealReal’s 20-minute hold a test of systems built around human behavior.

What did The RealReal change?

After The Verge published its findings, Friang said in an email that the company had addressed the Muse use case. He added: “Agents will still be able to surface listings from The RealReal and direct Muse users to product pages.”

Friang’s account covers all agents, not only the sequence used in The Verge’s test. The retailer has not promised to remove agents from its site. It has made the path from discovery to purchase harder while continuing to update its protections.

The RealReal will continue strengthening its protections as AI-powered online shopping evolves, Friang said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How large is the agent-shopping shift?

The Verge described technology companies as selling personalized assistants for billions of people. The pitch centers on always-on, compliant entities that will schedule meetings, throw parties and purchase things for human users. Shopping offers an early view of that model in a commercial setting.

Meta said on its Q3 earnings call this month that shopping was the most common use case for Muse so far. The company also said purchases averaged more than $200. Meta reported that 10 million people in the US had downloaded the Muse app in 40 days.

The Verge described Muse as a hit that could signal a turning point for AI agents. The figures also show why The RealReal’s reserve system matters beyond a single bot experiment: agents can act at a scale and speed that a retailer’s checkout flow may not anticipate.

For businesses, the deeper issue is the future shape of the customer relationship. The Verge said that if people stop visiting sites directly and reach them through chatbots, companies sit one step removed from those customers. Retailers must account for that separation as advertising and purchasing move into the same