Amazon sues Perplexity AI over shopping agent in landmark case

Key takeaways

Amazon.com Inc. filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI Inc., demanding the company stop its AI browser agent from making purchases on behalf of users through Amazon's online marketplace.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, accuses Perplexity of committing computer fraud and violating Amazon's terms of service.

The lawsuit represents the first major legal confrontation between a dominant e-commerce platform and an AI company over autonomous shopping agents, potentially setting precedents for how far artificial intelligence can go in performing real-world tasks without explicit authorization from website operators.

Allegations of concealed automated activity

According to the complaint, Amazon alleges that Perplexity's Comet browser agent covertly accessed customer accounts and disguised automated activity as human browsing, degrading the shopping experience and creating privacy vulnerabilities..

The e-commerce giant contends that Perplexity failed to transparently identify when its AI agent was acting on behalf of users.

"Amazon's request is straightforward: Perplexity must be transparent when deploying its artificial intelligence," Amazon stated in its court filing. "No different than any other intruder, Perplexity is not allowed to go where it has been expressly told it cannot; that Perplexity's trespass involves code rather than a lockpick makes it no less unlawful."

Amazon spokesperson Lara Hendrickson said in an email statement that third-party applications making purchases for customers should operate openly.

"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," she said.

The lawsuit comes after Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity on October 31, demanding the company stop allowing its AI agents to shop on the platform.

This marked the second time Amazon has confronted Perplexity about the practice.

In November 2024, Amazon initially asked Perplexity to halt its purchasing agents, and the startup complied.

However, by August 2025, Perplexity resumed the practice with its new Comet browser agent, this time allegedly masking the agent's identity by making it appear as a standard Google Chrome browser user.

Perplexity fires back with bullying accusations

Perplexity responded forcefully to the legal action, dismissing Amazon's lawsuit as anticompetitive behavior.

A company spokesperson told Bloomberg the lawsuit "just proves Amazon is a bully." In a blog post titled "Bullying is not innovation," the startup argued that consumers should have the freedom to choose which AI assistants help them shop.

"It's a bully tactic to scare disruptive companies like Perplexity out of making life better for people," the company wrote in its blog post.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas defended the company's approach in an interview with Bloomberg, stating: "Amazon's a company that we've actually taken a lot of inspiration from. But I don't think it's customer-centric to force people to use only their assistant, which may not even be the best shopping assistant."

Srinivas argued that AI agents deputized by users should have "all the same rights and responsibilities" as human users, and maintained there is no need to distinguish between a person and their chosen agent. "It's not Amazon's job to survey that," he said.

The startup also accused Amazon of attempting to protect its advertising revenue rather than serving customer interests. "Amazon should love this. Easier shopping means more transactions and happier customers. But Amazon doesn't care, they're more interested in serving you ads," Perplexity wrote in its blog post.

Broader implications for AI commerce

The legal battle highlights an emerging debate over how autonomous AI agents should interact with major platforms and whether websites can restrict their use.

Perplexity is among several companies, including OpenAI and Google, working to reinvent web browsers around artificial intelligence to handle complex tasks like shopping, email drafting, and research automatically.

Amazon itself has developed competing AI shopping tools. In February 2024, the company launched Rufus, an AI chatbot that can answer questions and recommend products.

In April 2025, Amazon began testing "Buy For Me," a feature that allows shoppers to purchase items from other brand websites without leaving the Amazon app.

The dispute carries financial implications beyond user experience. Shopping agents could pose a significant threat to Amazon's lucrative advertising business, which generates revenue by selling prominent product placement on its platform.

If AI bots make purchasing decisions autonomously, the value of these advertising positions could diminish substantially.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy addressed third-party shopping agents during the company's earnings call last week, calling the current customer experience "not good" due to a lack of personalization and shopping history integration.

However, he suggested potential collaboration in the future. "But I do think we will find ways to partner," Jassy said, adding that Amazon was having "conversations" with builders of third-party agents.

The relationship between the two companies adds an ironic dimension to the conflict. Perplexity, valued at approximately $20 billion, is a major customer of Amazon Web Services, with Srinivas stating his company has made "hundreds of millions" in commitments to AWS. Additionally, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is an investor in Perplexity.

This lawsuit follows previous controversies surrounding Perplexity's data practices. Earlier this year, Cloudflare published research accusing the startup of scraping websites while defying requests from sites blocking AI bots.

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