In brief
- Amazon accused Perplexity’s Comet browser of violating its terms by disguising bots as human shoppers.
- Perplexity called the claims “legal bluster,” and said Amazon is trying to block user choice in AI assistants.
- The dispute highlights growing tension over “agentic browsers” like Comet, ChatGPT Atlas, and Opera Neon.
In an early showdown over the rise of “agentic” browsers, Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity AI demanding that its Comet assistant stop making purchases on the site. Amazon accused the AI search startup of disguising bots as human shoppers and violating its terms of service.
The e-commerce giant said Perplexity’s agent “degraded the Amazon shopping experience” and introduced privacy risks by acting on users’ behalf without disclosure, according to a letter first reported by Bloomberg.
Perplexity pushed back against the claims, calling them a bullying tactic.
“Amazon’s claims are typical legal bluster and completely unfounded,” a company spokesperson told Decrypt. “What if stores said you can only hire a personal shopper who works for the store? That’s not a personal shopper, it’s a sales associate.”
Agentic browsers embed autonomous AI agents that act on the user’s behalf, automating tasks like filling out forms, booking travel, or making purchases without manual clicks. Recent rollouts include Perplexity AI’s Comet, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas, BrowserOS, and Opera Neon. In September, OpenAI introduced an “Instant Checkout” feature in ChatGPT that allowed AI agents to complete purchases for users via chat after integrating in-app shopping earlier this year.
In a blog post titled “Bullying Is Not Innovation,” Perplexity called Amazon’s legal threat “dangerous” and framed the dispute as a fight over user autonomy.
“It’s dangerous to confuse consumer experience with consumer exploitation,” Perplexity wrote. “Users want AI they can trust, and they want AI assistants that work on their behalf and no one else’s.”
The post argued that users have the right to “hire their own digital assistants,” and that “publishers and corporations have no right to discriminate against users based on which AI they’ve chosen to represent them.”
Amazon’s terms prohibit any use of data mining, robots, or similar data-gathering and extraction tools. Amazon said Comet disguised automated logins as a Google Chrome browser; after Amazon blocked the activity, Perplexity released an update to bypass the restriction.
Amazon defended its position, saying that third-party AI agents must operate transparently and in cooperation with participating businesses.
“We think 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,” Amazon said in a statement. “Agentic third-party applications such as Perplexity’s Comet have the same obligations, and we’ve repeatedly requested that Perplexity remove Amazon from the Comet experience, particularly in light of the significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience it provides.”
Amazon said it remains open to agentic experiences that operate transparently and enhance customer value.
Perplexity maintained that Comet, when shopping, only uses the customer’s own credentials stored locally on their device—not on Perplexity’s servers—and argued that its agents “act solely on the user’s behalf.” It also accused Amazon of being more interested in “serving ads and influencing purchasing decisions with upsells and confusing offers” than improving customer experience.
Perplexity is a major customer of Amazon Web Services running its infrastructure on AWS, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is an investor, adding irony to a conflict that pits two intertwined companies against each other in defining who controls the next era of web automation.
For now, Amazon’s cease-and-desist marks one of the first formal challenges to how AI browsers operate when they search, click, and shop online.
“The future of agentic commerce will depend on users’ right to choose and trust their own AI agents,” Perplexity AI’s spokesperson said.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/347325/amazon-sends-cease-desist-perplexity-ai-agent-purchases
