If you were hoping to have an AI agent book your next United flight, the airline has said no. United Airlines announced on Wednesday that it is banning third-party personal AI agents from making reservations on travellers' behalf, according to CBS News. It is the clearest example yet of a large company refusing to let consumer agents such as OpenAI's Dots or Meta's Muse act inside its systems.
United gives two reasons. The first is security: to book a flight, an agent needs a customer's personal details and payment credentials, and the airline says sharing account logins with third-party assistants can expose sensitive information and lead to unintended purchases, account changes or use of MileagePlus miles. The second is regulation. United argues that an agent checking in for a flight could breach federal rules, such as the requirement that travellers confirm in person that their luggage contains no banned items. The airline says it will restrict access directly on its own website and apps, and indirectly through travel agencies and aggregators, and is updating its booking and ticketing policies.
The commercial reading is just as important. Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, told CBS that United does not want yet another powerful intermediary between it and its customers, on top of Google search, fare-comparison sites and online travel agencies. Flight searches also cost airlines money, and a surge of automated agent searches would add to that bill. Not every airline agrees: Southwest has made its flight inventory visible to ChatGPT users through the app.
For anyone using agents to shop, this is the other half of the story behind OpenAI's new ChatGPT Wallet. Payment tokens and per-purchase approval address the risk to the customer, but they do nothing if the seller blocks the agent. Amazon has already shut out Meta's Muse, and United is now doing the same for flights. Expect more companies to choose between building their own official agent access, as Southwest has, and refusing outright.
Practical effects should be limited for now. Harteveldt says United fares will remain bookable through Kayak, Hopper and Google Flights, so finding a good price should be no harder. What is unclear is how United will tell an agent from a person using a browser, how it will enforce the rule through third-party sites, and whether its regulatory argument would hold up if agents only searched and the traveller completed check-in.