Perplexity AI Inc. is being sued by Amazon.com Inc. in an effort to stop the startup from helping customers make purchases on the world’s largest online marketplace. The possible uses of so-called agentic artificial intelligence may be impacted by this conflict.
On Tuesday, the US online retailer filed a lawsuit, asking Perplexity to stop allowing its AI browser agent, Comet, to complete transactions on behalf of clients. The e-commerce giant claims that Perplexity violated Amazon’s terms of service by failing to disclose when Comet is making purchases on behalf of a real person, thereby committing computer fraud, according to the case filed in federal court in San Francisco.
Amazon is launching a dispute after sending the startup a cease-and-desist letter on Friday, claiming the smaller company had revealed privacy flaws and harmed the Amazon shopping experience, according to people familiar with the matter. The case could help set precedents for how far agentic AI could go in helping people understand and perform real-world tasks automatically, rather than just creating content for the internet.
The dispute between Amazon and Perplexity offers a preview of the upcoming debate on how to handle the proliferation of so-called AI agents that carry out increasingly complex online tasks for users, such as making purchases.
In an effort to streamline other tasks for users, such as writing emails and conducting research, Perplexity has pushed to redesign the traditional web browser around AI, much like OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
“Amazon’s request is straightforward: Perplexity must be transparent when deploying its artificial intelligence,” the US retailer wrote in its filing. “Like any other intruder, Perplexity is not allowed to enter areas where it has been expressly forbidden to do so; the fact that Perplexity’s trespassing involves code rather than a lockpick does not lessen the illegality of the act.”
Amazon is also developing its own AI agents, some of which have the ability to shop. Introduced in April, Buy For Me is a tool that lets users buy products from brand websites within the Amazon shopping app. It is presently being tested by the general public. Another AI assistant, Rufus, has the ability to browse Amazon’s website, suggest products to users, and add items to a cart. However, a large portion of the experimentation with how agents might interact with the web has been carried out by companies such as Perplexity, which is currently valued at $20 billion.
“We’ve actually taken a lot of inspiration from Amazon,” said Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas in an interview. “However, I don’t think it’s customer-centric to force people to use their assistant exclusively—who might not even be the best shopping assistant.” In November 2024, Amazon asked Perplexity to stop using AI agents that could make purchases on the website until the two companies agreed on the practice, according to people familiar with the matter. The startup did as it was told.
But according to the letter, Perplexity had started using its new Comet browser agent by August of this year, which had gained access to their users’ Amazon accounts. Perplexity identified the agent as a Google Chrome browser user this time, per Amazon’s message. When Perplexity refused to stop its bots, Amazon tried to disable them, but Perplexity created a new version of Comet to get around the security measure.
“It’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions whether or not to participate,” said Lara Hendrickson, an Amazon representative, in an email comment. She continued by saying that other companies, including online travel agencies and food delivery services, employ comparable procedures.
“Given the drastically worsened shopping and customer service experience that Amazon offers, we have repeatedly requested that Perplexity remove it from the Comet experience. The same responsibilities apply to agentic third-party apps, such as Comet from Perplexity,” she said.
Srinivas said he doesn’t believe it’s necessary to distinguish between a user and an agent who is deputised on their behalf in response to Amazon’s cease-and-desist letter accusing Perplexity of concealing its agents. According to Srinivas, agents must have “all the same rights and responsibilities” as real human users. “Amazon is not responsible for surveying that,” he said.
Over the past 18 months, publishers have accused Perplexity of using their content in AI news summaries without permission and of buying data that had been illegally scraped from Reddit discussion forums.
Srinivas claims that Perplexity’s Comet browser does not train or scrape any information from Amazon using its Comet agent; rather, it merely carries out the tasks required to complete purchases at a user’s request. Perplexity further claimed that Amazon was trying to “eliminate user rights” in order to boost ad sales in the blog post responding to the cease-and-desist letter.
Shopping agents may eventually pose a significant threat to Amazon’s lucrative advertising business, which generates the majority of its income from the sale of prominent placement on its online store in response to customers’ product search queries. If bots shop for customers, the advertising location might lose value.
The customer experience for AI shopping assistants was “not good,” according to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during an earnings call last week. He cited problems with shipping estimates and pricing, as well as a lack of personalisation and user-specific purchasing history.
He claimed that third-party agent builders and Amazon were having “conversations.” “But I do think we will find ways to partner,” he stated.
Perplexity is a customer of Amazon’s cloud division. Srinivas claims that his company has paid Amazon Web Services “hundreds of millions.” In 2023, AWS also had Srinivas on stage at its annual trade show. The startup has often been cited by AWS as one of the AI firms that built their operations in part on Amazon’s digital infrastructure.
Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has also invested in Perplexity.
