United is restricting AI agents from booking flights

The airline believes AI poses security risks and may violate DOT and FAA rules.

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United Airlines has announced it will change ticking policies to restrict AI agents' from booking flights through its website, third-party travel agencies and flight aggregators. The airline joins a growing number of businesses, including JPMorgan Chase and Amazon, which block agents from using their products to avoid the security and privacy issues associated with them.

Giving something like your payment details or log-in credentials to an agent can expose sensitive information and lead to "unintended purchases, account changes or use of MileagePlus miles," United says. Allowing an AI agent to complete a booking could also violate existing airline regulations from the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration. For example, United says only a human can acknowledge that their bag doesn't contain explosives during flight check-in.

United would like to avoid association with any agent-based embarrassments, for instance when Meta's Muse leaked a user's address online. Like other companies, it also wants to keep AI from getting in the way of its relationship with customers. The Wall Street Journal reports that United CEO Scott Kirby has been open about the company's reluctance to jump into agentic commerce. "To be honest, I don't want to create another middleman," Kirby said at an event on Tuesday. Not every airline feels the same way: Southwest created a plugin so users can book flights with ChatGPT. 

Luckily for United and other companies blocking AI agents, agentic commerce might not be taking off with regular people. During its recent third-quarter earnings call, Uber shared that it handled 320 million trips and deliveries during the week of Halloween; of those, AI agents were responsible for 500 Uber Eats orders and only four rides. Those aren't exactly industry-destroying numbers.

Handing an AI your credit card is very different from handing it your email login, and both are different from just asking it to send you a news summary every morning. Even if a large number of people are downloading apps like Muse, it seems like letting an agent shop for you isn't as frictionless or foolproof as it needs to be to catch on.