What's holding Muse back from commercialization? It's been shut out by two-thirds of websites.

Meta's AI agent Muse is facing a real hurdle: website access problems are becoming the core bottleneck to its agent business commercialization, rather than the model's capabilities themselves.

According to a recent research report by Jefferies, their analyst team conducted tests on hundreds of major US e-commerce, airline, online travel, hotel, and booking websites. They found that approximately one-third of these websites directly block Muse access, another third impose challenges or restrictions, leaving only about one-third accessible smoothly. If this access friction continues, it could delay the monetization timeline for Meta proxy services and further solidify Google's structural advantage.

Meanwhile, Meta's advertising business fundamentals remain robust. Jefferies' advertising expert research shows that advertisers' Meta advertising spending growth surpassed Google's in Q3 2026, and this trend is expected to continue into Q4 2026 and Q1 2027. Jefferies maintains its buy rating on Meta with a target price of $875, representing approximately 18% upside from the current share price.

Access barriers have replaced model capabilities as Muse's biggest constraint.

In a report, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill's team noted that Muse's technical capabilities continue to be impressive, but the bottleneck in agency business is shifting from "whether the model is good enough" to "whether it can get in."

Real-world testing results show that websites are adding restrictions on proxy access almost daily. Of the hundreds of websites tested, about one-third directly blocked Muse, another third restricted automated interaction through verification challenges or other methods, and only about one-third allowed Muse to navigate smoothly.

The report argues that many websites' decision to block or challenge automated interactions by default is a mistake in the long run, as proxy commerce will broaden distribution channels. Meta's strategy is to establish sanctioned connectors with merchants, having announced partnerships with Walmart, Best Buy, Wayfair, Sephora, and Dick's Sporting Goods, but most integrations are still in the early stages of deployment and have not yet officially launched.

However, access friction may slow down the overall adoption of the agency business and ultimately lengthen the timeline for Meta to achieve meaningful commission monetization.

Google's competitive advantage has benefited from this, creating new opportunities in the enterprise customer service market.

The access barriers objectively highlight Google's structural advantages.

A Jefferies report points out that the vast majority of companies are unwilling to block Googlebot because it would have a substantial impact on their search traffic. This reality gives Google a significant advantage in data acquisition and web access, and with the advent of the AI agent era, the value of this moat may further increase.

Google's crawling system, distribution network, and long-accumulated network access rights provide its proxy products with native coverage and contextual capabilities, while competitors may have to negotiate access rights on a site-by-site basis.

Meanwhile, the surge in customer service inquiries driven by agency business has created new market opportunities for enterprise customer service software vendors. Jefferies' testing revealed that Muse's most frequent interactions were with self-built enterprise customer service systems, followed by CRM systems and Sierra. The report suggests that both publicly traded companies like CRM, Hubs, and NOW, and private companies like Sierra and Decagon, are poised to benefit from this trend.

Strong advertising demand fuels Muse's popularity and boosts the Meta advertising ecosystem.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the timeline for monetizing agency business, Meta's advertising business fundamentals have not been negatively impacted, and the popularity of Muse itself is translating into an incremental driver of advertising demand.

Jefferies' Q3 2026 advertising expert survey (sample size N=20) shows that 40% of advertisers expect Muse to increase their clients' advertising spending on the Meta platform within the next 12 months. The surveyed advertising experts also pointed out that as agency AI processes more queries, advertising optimization goals will shift from click-based to results-oriented, a trend that positively supports Meta's advertising product logic.

Jefferies maintains its Buy rating on Meta with a target price of $875, corresponding to a P/E ratio of approximately 25x 2027 earnings per share. The report also notes that declining user engagement, advertiser attrition, and regulatory risks are the main downside risks.

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