Amazon Sends Cease-and-Desist to Perplexity Over AI Agent Purchases

In a first crackdown on the rise of “agentive” browsers, Amazon has sent Perplexity AI a cease-and-desist letter demanding that its assistant Comet stop making purchases on the site. Amazon has 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 behalf of undisclosed users, according to an earlier letter. reported from Bloomberg.

The perplexity rested against the claims, calling it a bullying tactic.

“Amazon’s claims are typical legal shams and completely unfounded,” a company spokesperson said. Decrypt. “What if the stores say you can only hire a personal shopper who works for the store? It’s not a personal shopper, it’s a sales associate.”

Agent browsers embed standalone AI Agents that act on behalf of users, automating tasks such as filling out forms, booking trips, or making purchases without manual clicks. Recent launches 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 in-app integration shopping earlier this year.

In a blog place Titled “Bullying Is Not Innovation,” Perplexity called Amazon’s legal threat “dangerous” and framed the dispute as a fight for user autonomy.

“It is dangerous to confuse consumer experience with consumer exploitation,” wrote Perplexity. “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 “employ their own digital assistants” and that “publishers and corporations do not have the right to discriminate against users based on which AI they have chosen to represent them.”

Amazon terms prohibit any use of data mining, robots, or similar data-gathering and extraction tools. Amazon said that Comet disguised automated logins as a Google Chrome browser; after Amazon blocked the activity, Perplexity released an update to bypass the restriction.

Amazon has defended its position, saying that third-party AI agents must operate transparently and in cooperation with participating companies.

“We think it’s pretty straightforward that third-party apps that offer to make purchases on behalf of other businesses’ customers should operate openly and respect service providers’ decisions to participate or not,” Amazon said in a statement. declaration. “Third-party agent apps like Perplexity’s Comet have the same obligations, and we have 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 agent experiences that operate transparently and increase customer value.

Perplexity argued that Comet, when making purchases, only uses the customer’s credentials stored locally on their device — not on Perplexity’s servers — and argued that its agents “only act on behalf of the user.” He also accused Amazon of being more interested in “serving ads and influencing purchasing decisions with upsells and confusing offers” than improving the customer experience.

Perplexity is a major customer of Amazon Web Services running its infrastructure on AWS, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is a investoradding irony to a conflict that pits two 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 searching, clicking and buying online.

“The future of agent commerce will depend on the right of users to choose and trust their own AI agents,” said the spokesperson for Perplexity AI.