Amazon has sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, seeking to block the startup’s agentic AI browser Comet from accessing its online marketplace.The e-commerce giant has accused Perplexity of violating its terms of service after Comet, which can be used as an AI-powered shopping assistant, refused to identify itself as an AI agent despite multiple warnings, according to reports.
Perplexity, on the other hand, has argued that Comet does not have to identify itself as an AI agent because it automatically has the “same permissions” as a human user since it is acting on behalf of them.
Story continues below this ad
“This week, Perplexity received an aggressive legal threat from Amazon, demanding we prohibit Comet users from using their AI assistants on Amazon. This is Amazon’s first legal salvo against an AI company, and it is a threat to all internet users,” the AI search startup, which is interestingly backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said in a blog post on Tuesday, November 4.
Perplexity likely fears that if Comet identifies itself as an AI agent, Amazon could potentially favour its own shopping bot called Rufus and block rival, third-party AI bots from accessing the online store.
Additionally, Perplexity alleged that Amazon does not want AI agents to quickly find and purchase items for users because the e-commerce giant would not be able to sell advertising and product placements. “Easier shopping means more transactions and happier customers. But Amazon doesn’t care. They’re more interested in serving you ads, sponsored results, and influencing your purchasing decisions with upsells and confusing offers,” it said.
The dispute between Amazon and Perplexity sheds light on the various challenges that come with AI agents, which are designed to autonomously undertake tasks such as shopping, travel bookings, and restaurant reservations at the behest of the user.Story continues below this ad
It also underscores the growing turf war in the AI race and signals a shift toward more closed, tightly controlled ecosystems. Last month, WhatsApp updated its business API policy to ban general-purpose AI chatbots like Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT from operating on its platform.
In its response to Perplexity’s claims, Amazon pointed out that other third-party AI agents working at the behest of human users do identify themselves. “It is how others operate, including food delivery apps and the restaurants they take orders for, delivery service apps and the stores they shop from, and online travel agencies and the airlines they book tickets with for customers,” the big tech company said in a statement.
“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,” it added.
Meanwhile, Perplexity’s bots have led to similar disputes in the past. In August this year, Cloudflare said it has de-listed Perplexity’s verified web crawler bot after observing ‘stealth’ crawling behaviour from the AI search startup.Story continues below this ad
The cloud infrastructure provider, that also provides web security services, further accused Perplexity of attempting to circumvent a website’s preferences by using undeclared bots. However, Perplexity argued that its ‘user-driven AI assistants’ had been mischaracterised by Cloudflare as malicious bots. It also said that the alleged ‘stealth’ crawling behaviour was from a third-party service that it uses occasionally.