Real Safety AI Foundation / Research

Disability, Accessibility, and Civil Rights

The Already-Physical Present: Consumer AI Public Accommodations Under a Functional Coverage Test

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Working draft. Not peer reviewed.

Written
June 2026
Version
v6
Pages
13
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Abstract

A widely accepted premise in ADA Title III litigation against consumer artificial intelligence providers is that consumer AI is a pure-digital category lacking the physical operations that would establish nexus under the majority of federal circuits’ coverage doctrine. The premise is empirically wrong. As of 2026, Google operates ten permanent Google Stores selling Gemini-integrated devices. Meta operates Meta Labs in Burlingame, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, and Hawaii, selling Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. Microsoft operates the Fifth Avenue Experience Center selling Copilot-integrated Surface devices. Anthropic operates Project Vend, an experimental program in which the Claude AI system directly operates physical commercial endpoints; Project Vend demonstrates the near-term feasibility of AI systems occupying the commercial-operator role that Title III traditionally assigns to human or corporate operators, though the public-access element of Title III coverage remains unresolved on the current public record. This Article applies the functional public accommodation test developed in a companion Article to the consumer AI sector and demonstrates that three of the four largest consumer AI providers have, through their own physical retail operations, established Title III coverage that the nexus doctrine has been used to deny, with Anthropic positioned as the AI-as-commercial-operator demonstration. The Article develops a five-tier cascade strength scale that distinguishes settled coverage (Tiers 1 and 2) from the live litigation frontier (Tier 3) and from aggressive plaintiff theories (Tiers 4 and 5). The aggregate result is that substantial portions of the consumer digital economy fall within Title III coverage as of 2026 through the AI providers’ own physical operations. The narrower category of pure-digital services that remain genuinely without physical operations, with OpenAI as the most prominent example, requires the doctrinal reform developed in the companion Article. The doctrine has been satisfied for most of the consumer AI sector by facts the courts have not yet been asked to see.

Keywords

  • ADA Title III
  • nexus doctrine
  • consumer artificial intelligence
  • physical retail
  • Google Stores
  • Meta Labs
  • Microsoft Experience Center
  • Project Vend
  • functional public accommodation
  • integration cascade
  • embodied AI
  • Robles v. Domino's Pizza

Plain language slides

First slide of the plain language summary of The Already-Physical Present: Consumer AI Public Accommodations Under a Functional Coverage TestOpen the 17-slide summary (PDF)

Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "The Already-Physical Present: Consumer AI Public Accommodations Under a Functional Coverage Test." Real Safety AI Foundation Working Draft, June 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/already-physical-present/

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References (36)

This paper cites its sources in footnotes. Each authority is listed once, where it is first cited, with its footnote number.

  1. Footnote 1.Travis Gilly, No Place for the Nexus Doctrine: ADA Title III and Public Accommodation After Digital Migration.
  2. Footnote 2.37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994) (“It would be irrational to conclude that persons who enter an office to purchase services are protected by the ADA, but persons who purchase the same services over the telephone or by mail are not. Congress could not have intended such an absurd result.”).
  3. Footnote 3.913 F.3d 898 (9th Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 122 (2019).
  4. Footnote 4.Jason Rosenthal, Welcome to the new Google Store in NYC, Google Blog (May 20, 2021), https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/google-store-nyc/
  5. Footnote 4.Google, Google Store Locations, https://store.google.com/magazine/locations.
  6. Footnote 5.Lou Hirsh, Google debuts 10th US store in tough field for technology giants, CoStar News (May 12, 2026), https://www.costar.com/article/712768357/google-debuts-10th-us-retail-store-in-tough-field-for-technology-giants
  7. Footnote 5.Abner Li, The 10th Google Store is opening in San Diego this May, 9to5Google (Apr. 25, 2026), https://9to5google.com/2026/04/25/google-store-san-diego/.
  8. Footnote 6.Ivy Ross & Nathan Allen, Open for business: A look inside our Google Store in NYC, Google Blog (June 16, 2021), https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/google-store-nyc-opening/
  9. Footnote 6.Reddymade, Google Store Chelsea (project description), https://reddymade.design/projects/google-store-chelsea/.
  10. Footnote 7.Pei-Ru Keh, Google gets physical with first New York store, Wallpaper Mag. (last updated Oct. 7, 2022), https://www.wallpaper.com/design/google-new-york-store-opens.
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  15. Footnote 12.Ray-Ban Meta Glasses Sold Over 1 Million Units In 2024, UploadVR (Jan. 31, 2025), https://www.uploadvr.com/ray-ban-meta-glasses-sold-1-million-units/.
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  20. Footnote 16.Microsoft, Find a Microsoft Store Near Me, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/locations.
  21. Footnote 17.Kevin Okemwa, Microsoft has closed its “Experience Center” store in Sydney, Australia, as it ramps up a continued digital growth campaign, Windows Central (May 16, 2025).
  22. Footnote 18.Microsoft, Microsoft unveils new generative AI and data solutions across the shopper journey, offering copilot experiences through Microsoft Cloud for Retail, Microsoft News (Jan. 11, 2024), https://news.microsoft.com/source/2024/01/11/microsoft-unveils-new-generative-ai-and-data-solutions-across-the-shopper-journey-offering-copilot-experiences-through-microsoft-cloud-for-retail/.
  23. Footnote 20.Anthropic, Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop? (And why does that matter?), Anthropic Research (June 27, 2025), https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1
  24. Footnote 20.Anthropic, Project Vend: Phase two (Dec. 18, 2025), https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-2.
  25. Footnote 21.Joe Wilkins, Anthropic’s Advanced New AI Tries to Run Vending Machine, Goes Bankrupt After Ordering PlayStation 5 and Live Fish, Futurism (Dec. 20, 2025), https://futurism.com/future-society/anthropic-ai-vending-machine
  26. Footnote 21.Viacheslav Vasipenok, Anthropic’s Project Vend: When AI Takes the Reins of a Real-World Shop, QUASA (Dec. 29, 2025), https://quasa.io/media/anthropic-s-project-vend-when-ai-takes-the-reins-of-a-real-world-shop.
  27. Footnote 22.Cullen v. Netflix, Inc., 600 F. App’x 508 (9th Cir. 2015).
  28. Footnote 23.Figure AI, Figure 02 Humanoid Robot Specifications (2024)
  29. Footnote 23.1X Techs., NEO Humanoid Specifications (2024)
  30. Footnote 23.Agility Robotics, Digit Specifications (2024)
  31. Footnote 23.Tesla, Inc., Optimus Gen 2 Product Overview (2024)
  32. Footnote 23.Ryan Calo, Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw, 103 Cal. L. Rev. 513 (2015).
  33. Footnote 24.Meta Platforms, Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses Product Specifications (2024)
  34. Footnote 24.Apple Inc., Apple Vision Pro Product Specifications (2024)
  35. Footnote 24.Humane Inc., AI Pin Product Specifications (2024) (company subsequently wound down operations in 2025).
  36. Footnote 25.28 C.F.R. §36.104

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