Muse About Agentic AI with Professor Christoph Busch

Personal AI agents like Meta’s recently launched Muse could change the way how consumers interact with digital services and have a transformational impact on the functioning of digital markets. Sooner rather than later, AI agents could interact autonomously with apps or online shops and purchase goods and services on behalf of consumers in accordance with pre-defined preferences and payment options. 

 

To enable consumers to reap the benefits of agentic commerce and allow firms to roll out innovative business models, the legal infrastructure must become “agent-ready“ as well. Against this background, the talk explores how the shift towards agentic commerce challenges several core concepts and regulatory tools of a human-centric consumer law – from mandatory disclosures and design-based consumer law standards to rules against unfair commercial practices – and how consumer law must adapt to work for humans… and machines.

 

Christoph Busch is a Professor of European Private and Business Law and Director of the European Legal Studies Institute at the University of Osnabrück where he is also the Director of the “Digital Law” program. Additionally, he is an Affiliated Fellow of the Yale Information Society Project at Yale Law School, New Haven, and a member of the EU Consumer Policy Advisory Group.

His research focuses on the regulation of digital platforms, digital services, artificial intelligence, and consumer law.