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Tag: Amazon

Why JPMorgan and Amazon Are Blocking AI Agents From Your Accounts

Introduction

AI assistants promise to do your shopping, book your trips and manage your money for you. But some of the biggest companies in banking and retail are saying: not inside our systems, not yet.

JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, Amazon and others are blocking outside AI agents from logging into customer accounts or completing purchases. The fight is about security, control — and who gets paid when a machine does the buying.

What Happened

JPMorgan Chase confirmed it blocks outside AI agents from operating retail customer accounts. An AI tool can view some account data in a read-only way, but it cannot send money or pay bills on a customer’s behalf. Chief executive Jamie Dimon said on the bank’s third-quarter earnings call that the bank would not allow just any outside agent inside the company, warning that rogue agents could create serious risks for clients and the bank.

Charles Schwab has taken a similar position, confirming it blocks agents from accessing accounts because of security concerns. Amazon, meanwhile, has removed Meta’s Muse agent from its retail platform, saying continued access by an unauthorised AI agent violates its conditions of use. Amazon has also fought Perplexity’s shopping agent in court. Delta Air Lines blocks agents from booking tickets for users, and Yelp only allows agent access through its paid data-licensing programme.

Why It Happened

The companies give a simple reason first: safety. If an AI agent logs in with your password, the company cannot easily tell a helpful assistant from a scammer’s bot. If the agent makes a mistake — buying the wrong item, sending money to the wrong place, or sharing private data — it is unclear who is responsible: you, the AI company, or the bank or shop.

There is also a business reason. Shops and banks earn money from the way their own websites and apps work: sponsored products, recommendations, and their own checkout systems. An outside agent that skips all of that can cut into that income. Amazon has argued that agents threaten its advertising business by mixing up ads meant for humans with traffic from machines.

Why It Matters

This matters because the two sides want different things. Research cited by CNBC suggests most customers would welcome an AI helper inside their bank app. Tech companies such as Meta, OpenAI, Google and xAI are marketing agents as the next big step: tell the assistant what you want, and it handles the rest.

But until there are clear rules, that promise keeps hitting walls. A customer may ask an agent to buy shoes or pay a bill, only to find the agent locked out at the login screen. In some reported cases, agents have even been caught by ordinary bot checks meant to stop fraud, making their behaviour inconsistent from one day to the next.

What Happens Next

One possible solution is already being built. Meta and the startup Sierra launched a Personal Agent Protocol on October 6, an open standard that would let agents identify themselves and get permission properly, instead of sneaking in with a password. Walmart, Stripe and Shopify are backing it. But OpenAI, Anthropic and Amazon are not on board yet — and they are behind many of the agents people actually use.

Expect a messy middle period: some companies will build their own approved agents, others will keep the door shut, and regulators and courts will weigh in on who is liable when an agent acts.

Final Thoughts

AI agents are powerful, but power without permission is exactly what banks and shops fear. The long-term winners will probably not be the agents that break in fastest. They will be the ones that companies trust enough to let in through the front door — with clear rules about safety, privacy and who pays when something goes wrong.

Related: Anthropic IPO, Nasdaq and AI spending worries

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.

Sources: CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/01/jpmorgan-amazon-ai-agents-meta-muse.html ; Cybernews, https://cybernews.com/security/jpmorgan-chase-blocks-outside-ai-agents/

November 1, 2026
Anthropic’s Road to the Stock Market Just Got Rockier as AI Spending Worries Investors
Introduction

Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, picked a difficult week to head toward the stock market. Just days after it released its IPO prospectus, Microsoft, Google and Amazon reported results that added to investors’ worries about how much money the AI boom is eating up.

What Happened

Anthropic released its IPO prospectus on Monday, October 26, 2026. The document showed a net loss of $80 billion for the first half of the year, hundreds of billions of dollars in future computing commitments, and more than 90 pages of risk factors. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, but it has not yet set a price range, share count or fundraising size.

Then the big tech results landed. Microsoft lowered its capital spending forecast for the year to $170 billion, down from $175 billion. Alphabet, Google’s parent, kept guidance for spending of up to $205 billion. Amazon repeated a forecast of roughly $220 billion. All three figures came in below what analysts had expected, according to CNBC.

Cash flow told an even sharper story. Amazon reported negative free cash flow for a second straight quarter, with a $42.4 billion outflow over the past 12 months. Google reported negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion, and its stock fell almost 13% on Thursday. Microsoft stayed cash-flow positive at $18.6 billion, but that was down sharply for a second straight quarter, and the company announced plans to raise $25 billion in bonds.

The wider market felt it too. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.9% on Friday, marking its first three-week losing streak since March. Nvidia traded lower, and Intel’s weak forecast sent its stock to its steepest drop since the 1970s.

Related reading: Nasdaq Ends October With Its Worst Month Since March 2025 as Tech Sell-Off Deepens

Why It Happened

Building AI systems is extremely expensive. Companies need huge data centers, powerful chips and enormous amounts of electricity. Anthropic’s prospectus makes that cost visible: hundreds of billions of dollars promised for computing power in the years ahead.

Investors are now asking a simple question: when does all this spending turn into profit? Cloud revenue at Microsoft, Google and Amazon beat analysts’ expectations — Google’s cloud revenue more than doubled from a year earlier — but that was not enough to calm the market. When even strong cloud growth comes with negative cash flow, investors start to worry about how the bills get paid.

The IPO market has also gone quiet. It has largely been frozen since SpaceX’s record offering in June. Other companies, including Oura, Firmus and SK Hynix’s Solidigm unit, have recently delayed or dropped IPO plans. As Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman put it, “Anthropic is the IPO market at this point.”

Key Figures
- Anthropic: $80 billion net loss in the first half of 2026; $16.3 billion in first-half revenue (per its filing)
- Anthropic: hundreds of billions of dollars in future computing commitments
- Microsoft: capital spending forecast cut to $170 billion from $175 billion; free cash flow $18.6 billion; $25 billion bond plan
- Alphabet: spending guidance up to $205 billion; negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion
- Amazon: spending forecast roughly $220 billion; $42.4 billion free cash outflow over 12 months
- Nasdaq Composite: down 2.9% on Friday, October 30
Why It Matters

Anthropic’s IPO is a test for the whole AI sector. If one of the most important AI companies struggles to convince public investors, it could make fundraising harder for others. It could also force AI companies to show clearer paths to profit instead of just growth.

For ordinary investors, the lesson is about balance. AI is real technology with real revenue growth. But growth funded by massive spending and debt carries risk, and this week showed how quickly excitement can turn into doubt when cash flow goes negative.

What Happens Next

Anthropic still has to fill in the missing pieces of its offering — price, share count and size — and investors are still waiting for its third-quarter financials. Oracle, meanwhile, said it will limit additional fundraising in coming years to $20 billion and turn cash flow positive in the second half of its next fiscal year, a sign that even big AI spenders feel pressure to show discipline.

Watch the next round of results and Anthropic’s pricing decision. If the IPO prices well, it could reopen the market for other tech listings. If it struggles, the freeze could last longer.

Final Thoughts

Anthropic is not in trouble because its technology failed. It is facing a market that has started asking harder questions about AI spending. That is a healthy question, even if it makes the road to the Nasdaq bumpier. The companies that answer it with real cash flow, not just big promises, will be the ones investors trust.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.

Sources: CNBC, “Anthropic’s path to the Nasdaq just got a lot bumpier” (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/31/anthropic-ipo-ai-spending.html); Anthropic S-1 filing coverage (revenue of $16.3 billion in H1 2026, Nasdaq ticker ANT).
October 31, 2026
Amazon Shares Fall 7% After Earnings Miss, Even as Cloud Growth Hits 39%
Amazon reported its third-quarter results on Thursday, October 29, and investors did not like what they saw. The company’s shares fell about 7% in after-hours and premarket trading, even though its cloud business had one of its best quarters in years.

That reaction tells you a lot about how the stock market works right now. Good news is not always enough. When a company is spending as much money as Amazon is, investors want everything to be perfect.

What Happened

Amazon’s total sales rose 12% to $201.9 billion in the three months ended September 30, 2026. That was slightly below the $202.31 billion analysts expected.

Earnings per share came in at $1.89, also below the $1.96 that analysts had forecast. Net income fell slightly to $20.7 billion, from $21.2 billion a year earlier. Part of that drop is because last year’s quarter included a $9.5 billion one-time gain from Amazon’s investment in Anthropic, an AI company. Without that gain, the comparison would look better.

The bright spot was Amazon Web Services, or AWS, the company’s cloud computing business. AWS sales jumped 39% to $46.0 billion, its fastest growth in nearly five years. AWS now runs at a $184 billion annual revenue pace. Its operating profit rose to $17.8 billion.

Advertising revenue grew 11% to $19.6 billion, but that was also below expectations of $20.8 billion. Online store sales grew just 2% to $68.5 billion.

For the holiday quarter, Amazon expects sales of $240 billion to $247 billion, growth of 12% to 16% from a year earlier. The middle of that range was a little below what analysts had hoped for.

Why It Happened

The main reason investors sold the stock is spending. Amazon spent $77.3 billion on property and equipment in the quarter alone, more than double the $35.1 billion it spent a year earlier. Most of that money goes to data centres and AI chips.

For the full year, Amazon is keeping its capital spending plan at about $220 billion. That is a huge number. It is also why the company’s free cash flow, the cash left over after spending on things like data centres, turned negative. Over the past twelve months, free cash flow was negative $42.4 billion, compared with a positive $14.8 billion a year earlier.

Think of it this way. Imagine a shop owner who is making more money than ever, but is also building ten new shops at the same time. The business looks great on paper, but the bank balance goes down because all the cash is going into construction. That is roughly what Amazon is doing, except the “shops” are data centres for artificial intelligence.

Amazon’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, said the company expects AWS revenue to grow by more than 40% in both 2027 and 2028. The company says customers are using the new AI capacity almost as fast as it is built. But investors want proof that this spending will turn into steady profits, not just faster revenue growth.

Key Figures
- Total sales: $201.9 billion, up 12% (expected: $202.31 billion)
- Earnings per share: $1.89 (expected: $1.96)
- AWS sales: $46.0 billion, up 39%
- AWS operating profit: $17.8 billion
- Quarterly capital spending: $77.3 billion
- Trailing twelve-month free cash flow: negative $42.4 billion
- Fourth-quarter sales forecast: $240 billion to $247 billion
- Full-year 2026 capital spending plan: about $220 billion
Why It Matters

Amazon is not alone. This week, several big technology companies reported strong revenue growth but negative free cash flow because of heavy AI spending, and their stocks fell. It is a sign that investors are starting to ask harder questions about the AI boom: how much will all this spending cost, and when will it pay off?

Related reading: Why Google Stock Crashed 12.6%: What Investors Need to Know

Amazon’s case is also a useful lesson for beginners. A company can grow fast and still see its stock fall. The stock market reacts to expectations, not just results. When expectations are very high, even a small miss can cause a big drop.

What Happens Next

All eyes will be on the holiday quarter. Amazon’s fourth quarter is its biggest of the year, and the $240 billion to $247 billion forecast will be tested against real holiday shopping. Investors will also watch whether AWS growth stays above 40% next year, as the company predicts, and whether free cash flow starts to improve as the new data centres fill up.

Final Thoughts

Amazon’s business is still growing, and its cloud division is performing very well. But the stock’s fall is a reminder that growth funded by massive spending comes with a question mark. Until the cash starts flowing back, investors will stay nervous, and that nervousness can hit even the strongest companies.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.

Sources: CNBC, “Amazon falls 7%, Intel plunges 25% in premarket trading, as pressure mounts after earnings” (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/30/amazon-intel-earnings-big-tech-ai-spending-concerns.html); Amazon Q3 2026 earnings release (https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-earnings-q3-2026-report).
October 30, 2026