The RealReal Prevents AI Agents from Holding Products in Carts

Second-hand luxury and consignment fashion retailer The RealReal has announced that it has updated its bot defense system to make it more difficult for AI agents to shop. This move follows instances where AI tools, such as Meta's Muse, exploited the product reservation system, preventing other customers from making purchases.

The RealReal's product reservation system allows an item to be held for 20 minutes once it is added to a cart. Demonstrations using Meta's Muse AI agent revealed that an agent could repeatedly add expiring items back into the cart, preventing other customers from purchasing them.

The company's CTO, Luke Friang, confirmed that measures have been taken against this use case and that bot defense configurations have been strengthened to make it harder for agents to log in, add items to carts, and complete payments. It was stated that in the future, AI agents will continue to only display listings and direct users to product pages.