United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights

Welcome to the no-fly list, Muse. Just a couple of months into the rollout of personal AI assistants from Meta and its rivals, United Airlines announced yesterday that it’s had enough: It’ll no longer let customers deploy AI agents to book flights or manage trips on their behalf.

Not many travelers have used bots to buy tickets, the airline said, but United was still concerned that:

• AI agents could expose personal information or could make purchases, change account information, and spend frequent-flyer miles when customers didn’t want them to.
• Automating certain parts of the flight-booking process—like acknowledging that you’re not carrying explosives onboard—might violate FAA regulations.

Look, don’t touch: Though United will prevent AI assistants like Instinct, Muse, and OpenAI’s Dots from buying tickets, they’ll still be able to surface flights and prices—which a lot of users count on them for. Travel planning is one of Muse’s most popular uses, Mark Zuckerberg said last month.

Zoom out: These bots are increasingly getting blocked by e-commerce, tech, and banking companies, including Amazon, Booking.com, eBay, and JPMorgan Chase. United is the first major US carrier to follow suit.—ML