Meta is preparing to launch its Muse AI agent in the UK within weeks, The Sunday Times reported. It is also lining up partnerships that would let the agent buy directly from British retailers’ websites.

No official UK launch date has been confirmed, and no UK retail partners have been named.

Muse launched in the US and Canada in September and has since rolled out in markets including Japan, Singapore and Mexico. It browses retailer websites on a user’s behalf to research products, track prices and complete purchases.

The app has been downloaded by 10.9 million since its September launch. Shopping is its most common use, and Meta says the average purchase is over $200.

In the US, Meta has partnered with Walmart, Best Buy, Gap and Sephora. On its latest earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said Meta plans to charge businesses a fee when Muse helps complete a sale. Most users will get Muse for free.

Muse needs the user’s approval before it completes a purchase. Login and payment details are kept in secure storage, so the agent can use them without seeing them.

Amazon blocked Muse from its US site in September, after Meta declined a request to remove it. Amazon said it hadn’t been told Muse would access its store, that the agent didn’t identify itself while browsing, and that it had concerns over how customer logins were handled.

UK retailers will face the same choice: partner with third-party agents, let them in, or block them.

Muse is due to arrive while Meta is already under regulatory scrutiny in the UK. On 30th October, the Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation into Meta’s commercial terms for businesses using its platforms, over concerns they could let Meta collect content from business websites to build its own products, including AI features.

Meta had planned to bring in revised terms this month, but paused the rollout on 28th October to consult industry groups. It says there are “no grounds for a competition investigation”, and the CMA has not yet decided whether any law was broken.

Separately, the Information Commissioner’s Office is gathering evidence on how data protection law applies to AI agents. Its call for evidence closes on 20th November.