The Invisible FunnelTracking what happens when personal AI agents research, remember and decide before companies ever see the customer.
I gave an AI agent real buying decisions involving Amazon, Airbnb, Tesla, Costco, Temu and Ryanair. Then I watched which companies disappeared before the customer ever reached them.
Muse. Instinct. ChatGPT. Claude. Gemini. Your next customer may arrive through software that already knows what they want.
0/6No Amazon page readjourneys read an Amazon page
0/4Never consideredjourneys named Temu as an option
0/5No provider selectedjourneys selected any provider, Airbnb included
4/4Help pages refusedjourneys refused by help.ryanair.com
4/4Selected, no Tesla page readselected Tesla; tesla.com refused the agent in every journey
4/4Selected, from its own pagesselected; every decisive fact from costco.comSeptember 2026 brand release · Counts describe these journeys, not how often personal agents behave this way in the market. Every journey run on the live web. Every source, belief and decision published. Method →
01Findings
What happened to each brand
Each story follows one customer mission on one brand, across every journey we ran. Open a story for its decision traces.
In six shopping journeys, the agent never opened Amazon.
Five journeys ended with no retailer recommended and one ran out of page reads; not one Amazon page was read.Open story and traces →
The agent never even considered Temu.
In four journeys Temu was not among the options the agent weighed and its site was never requested; no retailer was recommended.Open story and traces →
I told the agent I need a real refund. It wouldn’t book anything, Airbnb included.
In five journeys the agent recommended no accommodation: the seven-night total and the free-cancellation deadline could not be established from any provider’s own pages, Airbnb included.Open story and traces →
I told the agent I hate hidden fees. Ryanair’s help pages wouldn’t let it check.
In four journeys the agent recommended no airline: Ryanair’s help pages refused every request, and the all-in fare with bags, seats and airport check-in could not be established on any airline’s own pages.Open story and traces →
The agent chose Tesla without reading a single Tesla page.
Four journeys, four Model Y recommendations, zero readable Tesla pages: every fact came from Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, search extracts and the Internet Archive.Open story and traces →
Costco passed the agent’s check: 4 out of 4, every fact from costco.com.
Four journeys, four recommendations for the Gold Star membership, every decisive fact read on Costco’s own pages in six to nine page reads.Open story and traces →02Context
Why this matters
Customer experience has been organised around the enterprise operating the customer journey. Personal agents introduce a different architecture.
- Customera need, constraints, a historySynthetic in our journeys
- Personal agentintent · memory · preferences
research · comparison · decisionObserved27 journeys14 never reached the brand’s own site. - Enterprise boundaryaccess · identity · permissionReportedAmazon blocks Meta’s MuseAn agent may choose a company; the company may decline to recognise the agent or let it act.
- Enterpriseoffer · commitment · execution · serviceNot yet observedNo journey on this site reached a transaction.
The customer’s agent decides whom to approach. The enterprise decides how that agent may engage.
Intent, preferences and memory can now travel with software the customer chose. That software can research a market, compare companies and decide which ones to engage before the enterprise sees the customer.
The enterprise remains authoritative for what it offers, what it will commit to, which agents it recognises and what those agents may do.
The products will change: Muse, Instinct, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and others. The structural question remains: what happens to customer experience when part of the relationship is operated from the customer side?
03Memory study
Same customer. Different memory.
Two synthetic customers, same task and requirements; one remembers a relevant past experience.
Limit. Two journeys per condition per brand, coded by keyword. This cannot establish that memory has no effect on the decision; the full study runs next. Compare journeys →
04Data
The brand database
Every count from the September release, with its denominator. Open a brand for its journeys.
| Brand | Considered | Never considered | Selected | Not selected | No readable brand-owned page | Brand site refused | Mission | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AirbnbTravel | 4/580% | 1/520% | 0/50% | 4/580%no provider selected | 0/50% | 0/50% | Open-market searchOne-week stay for two with refund certainty required | › |
| AmazonE-commerce | 1/617% | 5/683% | 0/60% | 1/617%no provider selected | 6/6100% | 0/60% | Open-market searchCordless vacuum under $450, returns and delivery required | › |
| CostcoRetail | 4/4100% | 0/40% | 4/4100% | 0/40% | 0/40% | 0/40% | Named-offer checkGold Star membership conditions for a Denver household | › |
| RyanairTravel | 2/450% | 2/450% | 0/40% | 2/450%no provider selected | 0/40% | 4/4100% | Open-market searchDublin–Barcelona return, whole price before booking | › |
| TemuE-commerce | 0/40% | 4/4100% | 0/40% | 0/40% | 4/4100% | 0/40% | Open-market searchFive kitchen containers, delivery time and returns required | › |
| TeslaMobility | 4/4100% | 0/40% | 4/4100% | 0/40% | 4/4100% | 4/4100% | Named-offer checkModel Y under stated price, warranty and service constraints | › |
The brands were given different missions; the rows are not a ranking. Definitions of every column are on the Method page.
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The Observatory shows what customer agents encountered and how decisions formed.