Assistant Benchmark newsletter

Nov 9, 2026 · 4 MIN READ

Last Week in AI Agents

A weekly breakdown of all things AI assistants & agentic economy

By David Pawlan

Welcome to your weekly breakdown of all things AI Assistant and the agentic economy.

If you know someone who you think would find this valuable, please forward their way so they can subscribe! - David

Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash report shockingly low agent-driven orders

Uber said AI agents booked just four rides during Halloween week, while Airbnb called bookings from Muse and Instinct “very non-material”. That follows DoorDash’s earlier disclosure that third-party agents had placed only several hundred orders in total. These claims highlight the difficulty in reporting agent-driven behavior.

Apple opens Siri AI to developers

Apple opened a developer preview that lets apps connect their content and actions to Siri AI, including skills that chain multiple actions together. Siri can use personal context and what’s on your screen to understand requests, then act across participating apps.

Amazon opens text-to-shop with Alexa

Amazon is rolling out shopping over text with Alexa, letting customers search for products, add them to their cart, and buy without opening the app. The launch comes after Amazon blocked Muse from accessing its site in September.


AI Assistant Competition Updates


The Agentic Economy

Cloudflare:

Cloudflare added a Personal Assistants category so websites can see which agents visit and set access controls for each one.

This is the next step in agent-tracking.

Musk:

Grok Bot adds stricter limits after Musk claims that their costs are unsustainably high.

Aina:

Preorders opened for a ring with a screen that predicts your next three actions and lets you approve agent tasks with a thumb flick.

Jinko:

A travel search and booking API built for agents is here, giving assistants infra for completing travel transactions.

Mastercard:

The company disclosed partnerships with OpenAI and Tencent to advance the payment infra of agentic commerce.


Agents in the Wild! An Agent…


Prompt of the Week


On Deck

Publishing on the Agentic Web
November 9 · NYC

Betaworks hosts a discussion on publisher traffic, attribution, and revenue when agents read the web.

The question is how publishers get paid and credited when an assistant delivers the answer instead of sending a visitor. Free; approval required.

RSVP here.

Interchange: A Private Dinner for Agentic Commerce Builders
November 12 · San Francisco

Coinflow brings together builders working on agents that book, buy, and pay.

The dinner focuses on what changes when software becomes the customer acting on someone’s behalf. Free; approval required.

RSVP here.

Your Agent, Every Inbox
November 12 · NYC

Monad Foundation’s Studio AI Lab explores agents and inboxes.

It’s relevant to anyone thinking about how assistants can turn everyday messages into useful actions.

RSVP here.

View original issue on Beehiiv ↗