The RealReal, a secondhand luxury fashion consignment retailer, said it’s updating its bot defense system, effectively making it harder for AI agents to shop on its site.

The change comes days after The Verge reported that an AI agent could be used to take advantage of The RealReal’s item reserve system. On the retailer’s website, an item goes “on hold” and is unavailable for other customers to buy for 20 minutes once it’s placed in a user’s shopping cart. Using Meta’s Muse, The Verge was able to instruct the AI agent to continuously re-add The RealReal listings in a shopping cart as soon as the 20-minute hold had expired, effectively blocking other shoppers from purchasing products for hours or longer.

After publication, chief technology officer Luke Friang said in an email that the company had addressed the Muse use case flagged by The Verge ’s story. The RealReal’s bot defense configuration now makes it much more difficult for all agents to log in, add items to cart, and check out, Friang said.…