Silicon Valley’s expectation that billions of consumer AI agents would soon handle tasks like ordering food, booking travel, and filling shopping carts is encountering early signs of slower-than-anticipated uptake. On Friday, several senior executives reported low real-world usage of personal AI assistants such as Meta’s Muse and Instinct.
What the companies said
- Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, said on Friday the site has seen “very, very low numbers” of bookings made by Meta’s Muse and Instinct agents.
- Tony Xu, CEO of DoorDash, said the company has received “maybe several hundred orders in total” from personal AI assistants.
- Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, observed that “the adoption of these horizontal personal agents may be much slower than is anticipated.”
Numbers and timing
The statements do not include detailed daily breakdowns or long-term trends, only the anecdotal figures above: “very, very low” bookings and “maybe several hundred” total orders. These early data points suggest that commercial adoption of personal AI agents remains limited in practice so far.
Why this matters
If consumer personal agents are adopted more slowly than expected, that could validate decisions by major retailers to restrict agent access to their platforms. Companies such as Amazon have already limited agents’ interactions with their services; low agent-driven traffic would make those restrictions more defensible from revenue and monetization standpoints.
Possible explanations and implications
The current reports do not establish why adoption is lagging: consumers might not yet see the need, may distrust agents, or have not found compelling use cases. If slow uptake persists, it could influence investment priorities, business models, and platform policies across technology firms and retailers.
Summary
Recent comments from the CEOs of Airbnb, DoorDash and Booking Holdings indicate that transactions generated by personal AI agents are currently low. That trend could prompt reevaluation of strategies across the tech and retail sectors, and reinforce existing limits on agent access to commercial platforms.
