Bloomberg Surveillance · Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Juan Landono of the Cato Institute discusses the emerging conflict between companies developing proprietary AI systems and the push for wide adoption of AI agents. He posits that consumer response will be crucial, with potential for loyalty to either platforms or the agents themselves, and highlights the need for clarity on liability and platform design in the nascent AI ecosystem.
“I see this tug of war between companies that want to have their own AI systems and their own agents to be the ones to stay in the market versus the agents themselves are going to push to get wide adoption.”
“And I think it's going to be interesting to see the consumer response because if a platform blocks my AI agent, I might not want to interact with that platform as well.”
“So it's going to be interesting to see what side our customer is going to fall into more loyalty. Are they going to be loyal to a platform or a retailer that I really like? Or am I going to be loyal to my agent?”