Questions about AI agents and brands
Short answers from the published journeys. Each links to the evidence.
What is The Invisible Funnel?
An independent research observatory on how AI agents research, compare and choose companies on a customer's behalf. It runs synthetic customer journeys on the live web and publishes every source, belief and decision the agent recorded.
Which brands do AI shopping agents choose?
In the September 2026 release, the agent selected Costco in 4 of 4 journeys and Tesla in 4 of 4. It selected Amazon, Temu, Airbnb and Ryanair in none of their journeys. Each brand was given a different mission and samples are small, so this is not a ranking.
Do AI agents visit Amazon's website?
In 6 observed shopping journeys for a cordless vacuum, the agent accessed no Amazon-owned page. Amazon was not in the consideration set in 5 of 6, and Amazon's site did not refuse the agent in any of them.
Why did Amazon block Meta's Muse agent?
As reported by GeekWire and Engadget on 20–21 September 2026, Amazon restricted Muse from shopping on Amazon.com, saying Meta did not obtain its agreement, the agent does not identify itself, and it can reach account pages. Meta says Muse has no visibility into passwords or payment methods. The Invisible Funnel did not test Muse.
Does an AI agent consider Temu?
Temu did not surface in the consideration set across 4 observed journeys for kitchen containers with a ten-day delivery requirement. The deadline may favour faster retailers; a no-deadline run is planned.
Do websites block AI agents?
Some do. In the September release, 17 of 27 journeys met at least one website that refused the agent. help.ryanair.com refused it in 4 of 4 journeys and a Tesla-owned site in 4 of 4; the agent still selected Tesla using third-party sources.
Does customer memory change what an AI agent buys?
In the first memory study, the selection was the same with and without memory for all six brands. What changed was the search: the remembered issue was checked within the first three actions in 10 of 14 memory journeys versus 6 of 13 without. Two journeys per condition cannot rule out an effect.
Can I reproduce these experiments?
Yes. Every decision page carries the frozen customer mission, ready to run in the agent you use. Submitted runs are published as labelled community runs after review.
The Invisible Funnel observes specific agent journeys. Results are not rankings of brand quality, customer experience or commercial performance.