Amazon bans Meta Platforms’ Muse agent as analysts question access

Amazon faces a sponsored-product tradeoff with shopping agents

Deutsche Bank analysts said Amazon’s decision to ban Meta Platforms’ Muse AI agent highlighted questions about using agentic AI in commerce. They expect Amazon to develop its own AI shopper, but said the retailer must determine its posture toward third-party agents in the meantime. Allowing agents could reduce Amazon’s exposure to sponsored products, while restricting access could favor competitors that permit the tools.

“The key question is whether Amazon can accommodate third-party agents on terms that preserve attractive monetization, with DSP and video providing additional avenues for growth,” the analysts wrote.

Spotify announced plans to offer audiobooks in more than 180 markets. Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note that the expansion would bring more listeners and that Spotify would likely follow the audio playbook it used in 2024, though they did not expect a list of growth margins as meaningful as those seen that year. The analysts said the launch reiterated Spotify’s ability to leverage technology to drive growth and expected AI tools to be used in expanding audiobooks. Spotify was scheduled to release third-quarter earnings Thursday.

Morgan Stanley also said Spotify could move into the AI “winner bucket” if the company continued shipping products and demonstrating returns on spending. The analysts said Thursday’s earnings could provide more information about an upcoming AI remix product launch that could include Universal Music, Merlin and Kobalt. Morgan Stanley expected other labels, including Warner Music Group, to participate.

Netflix reported that Asia-Pacific was its fastest-growing region in the third quarter. Revenue in the region increased 15% to $1.54 billion after excluding the impact of foreign-exchange rate movements. Revenue in India rose 18%, while view hours increased 24%. Latin America ranked second, with revenue up 12% to $1.6 billion. Revenue rose 11% to $5.63 billion in the U.S. and Canada and 9% to $4.11 billion in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Netflix said its recent layoffs would weigh on operating margins. The company guided to a fourth-quarter operating margin of 26.0%, including a roughly 120-basis-point impact from the layoffs, and updated its full-year margin guide for a roughly 30-basis-point negative impact. The layoffs, announced the previous week, were expected to affect around 1,000 positions in Netflix’s product, tech, legal and HR teams. “These organizational changes enable us to continue to aggressively invest in high impact areas to improve our service, and drive growth and innovation,” the company said.

Netflix said the price increases it implemented in 2026 had not affected the health of user engagement. “Member response to our 2026 price changes is consistent with prior adjustments and our expectations, an indicator that our engagement – which encompasses quantity, quality and variety of viewing – remains healthy and that we continue to deliver strong value to members,” the company said. The Wall Street Journal reported that investors were expected to question Netflix executives about what it called disappointing engagement during the earnings call later.

Netflix planned to continue investing in third-party content and external partnerships as it sought to improve its offerings and revitalize engagement and subscriber growth. “We continue to expand our entertainment offering through licensing and bringing more third-party content to our service in new ways,” the company said. “Our broad distribution (we’re serving an audience approaching one billion people) and industry leading monetization make us great partners for studios, networks and creative talent.” Netflix cited recent deals with Disney and Take-Two, the video game studio behind Grand Theft Auto VI.

SpaceX reported third-quarter capital expenditures of $19.59 billion, including $16.44 billion for AI. The company said the AI spending helped increase its nameplate compute to 1.7 gigawatts as of the end of September, up from 1.4 gigawatts at the end of June. SpaceX’s AI segment turned a profit during the quarter, boosted by contracts to sell data-center capacity to other AI companies, including Anthropic and Google. Google had agreed earlier in the year to pay SpaceX $920 million a month beginning in October.

SpaceX also swung to a profit in its second-ever earnings report as AI revenue increased more than ninefold year over year to $7.6 billion. The company attributed the increase to cloud-computing deals activated during the third quarter, the close of its acquisition of Cursor and increased adoption of Grok.

Morgan Stanley analysts said Quantinuum’s finding that quantum-computing error correction improves with scale represented an important technical milestone and showed the company catching up to Google. “The result further solidifies Quantinuum’s lead among the pure plays and closes its main gap with Google,” the analysts wrote. Quantinuum had led in protected operations, while Google had been ahead in demonstrating that “more protection keeps lowering errors,” they said. “Quantinuum has now demonstrated both, with a steeper improvement per step than Google showed in its 2024 result, though Google’s result is peer reviewed and was decoded in real time.”

Citi analysts said European media stocks had rebounded in recent months even as earnings expectations remained largely stable, which suggested that investors’ AI fears about the sector were receding. As the market reassessed perceived AI risks, Citi favored companies with improving organic-growth prospects or share prices with room to recover.

Citi named the U.K.’s Informa and the Netherlands’ Wolters Kluwer as preferred picks. The bank started coverage on Germany’s Springer Nature and CTS Eventim with buy and neutral recommendations, respectively, and cut Britain’s RELX to neutral from buy because of its valuation. The Stoxx Europe 600 Media index fell 0.4%.

The Market Talks roundup covering technology, media and telecom was updated Oct. 20, 2026, at 5:05 p.m. ET. It was published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires at 4:20 ET, 12:20 ET and 16:50 ET.