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Platforms control access, while new ad monetization models could emerge

Two personal AI agents have been in the limelight over the past month – Muse and Instinct. Meta launched Muse in the US on 8th Sep'26 (Canada has since been added) on its own app, the web and WhatsApp. Instinct is an invite-only agent that users can interact with via text on iMessage or WhatsApp. Instinct is reportedly in talks to raise USD1b at a USD10b valuation. The market's primary read appears to be a threat to intermediaries. Expedia/Airbnb/Booking/Ixigo/MMT are down 2.2%/ 6.3%/12.1%/16.2%/17.7% since the launch, and in India, Eternal (Zomato) is volatile and Swiggy is down 15.5%

Key questions:

(1) what are these agents and what can they do so far?

(2) who controls access to them?

(3) where does monetization sit if ordering and discovery move to agents? To answer these questions, we tried Instinct on Indian apps and sites across a variety of tasks, such as ordering groceries, booking restaurants and movie tickets, and comparing flights and hotels. Exhibit 2 shows our experience task by task.

Our findings:

(1) Instinct handled most of the everyday tasks on open platforms – ordering on Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy, booking District tables and movie tickets, and shopping on a D2C site; OTPs and app-only wallets were the main friction.

(2) The power to grant access rests with platforms: Amazon, Goibibo and MakeMyTrip blocked the agent. Where the platform controls the service, i.e., food delivery and quick commerce, the agent has little choice. In travel, it can simply route around a blocking OTA (online travel agency) to another.

(3) Where platforms hold this power, we expect them to either launch their own agents or tie up with Muse, Instinct and others for access.

(4) This should give rise to a new ad monetization model within chat, though it is too early to say how it plays out.

Muse and Instinct: What are the agents and what can they do, for now?

* Meta launched Muse on 8th Sep'26 in the US (Canada since added) on its own app, the web and WhatsApp – mostly free to use with paid plans for heavy users. Meta says it books travel, sends emails, fills out forms and negotiates on the user's behalf, and keeps working after the app is closed, checking back before it pays or sends anything.

* Meta's own examples are household errands (Exhibit 1): selling a car for more, lowering a bill, turning a saved Instagram recipe reel into a grocery list, and planning a dinner-party menu around friends' dietary needs. Its design team showed Muse handling a child's back-to-school prep, from tracking school emails and loading a supplies cart to booking a celebration dinner. * Instinct is invite-only. Users can text or call the agent, and it uses a phone and a computer the way a person would. Its website lists five examples: disputing a wrong bill, sending birthday gifts, ordering groceries, booking doctor's appointments and planning a weekend getaway. Its sign-up form accepted Indian numbers as of 6th Oct’26.

* We believe both agents target high-frequency household errands, which is the core order flow of Indian food delivery, quick commerce and travel platforms.

India: Agents get in through platform websites, and platforms can close the door

* Zomato and Swiggy have built official connections that let assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude place orders. In practice these are set up through developer settings and are hard for an ordinary user to find, so we do not count them as a consumer channel today.

* Today, agents get in through the platforms' own websites, as our tests on Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy and District showed. Platforms can shut this door at any time, as Amazon, MakeMyTrip and Goibibo already have.

* Agents are getting in without official integrations. Our tests worked on District reservations and movie tickets, which have none

Ad impressions at risk, platforms who control access can devise new monetization tools

* Ad income on Indian platforms depends on traffic on the app and on market share, since brands pay to be seen where the most buyers are.

* Amazon's stated logic for blocking Muse is advertising: an agent does not browse sponsored listings, and Amazon reported ~USD70b of ad revenue last year. Eternal's management argues habit (four Zomato orders a week, Blinkit every other day) will not reroute through a chat window.

* We expect platforms to pull agentic ordering into owned chat surfaces and sell sponsored placement there; in India, the channel is WhatsApp, which already takes JioMart orders and is owned by Meta. We have found no working ad format in a chat agent yet, so this is a hypothesis.

* We see lost ad impressions as the key risk to monitor.

Early read by platform

* For now, we believe travel is the most exposed platform. Supply is commoditized, and when MakeMyTrip and Goibibo blocked Instinct, hotel discovery still worked through other sources, so an agent can route around a blocking OTA to another.

* Swiggy and Eternal sit in the same bucket. Food and grocery orders are currently allowed through agents, but both can choose to block them, as they deliver the actual service. This may cost some ad revenue, but we believe they will find a way to monetize agent orders over time.

* Urban Company is potentially exposed if an agent calls other listings and books service providers directly. Its edge lies in vetted service quality and warranties on the work, which an agent cannot provide, so we see the risk as limited.

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