According to Silicon Republic, Amazon filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI on November 4th in San Francisco federal court, demanding the company stop allowing its Comet AI browser agents from making purchases on Amazon’s platform. The lawsuit accuses Perplexity of committing “computer fraud” by failing to disclose when Comet is shopping on behalf of real users, which Amazon claims violates its terms of service prohibiting data mining and automated tools. Perplexity fired back, calling Amazon a “bully” and arguing that AI user agents should be treated like any other human user since they only act on specific user requests. This legal confrontation comes just after PayPal struck a deal with OpenAI to enable instant payments within ChatGPT, highlighting the growing momentum behind agentic shopping technology that could fundamentally change how consumers make online purchases.
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<h2 id="amazon-vs-ai-agents”>The Real Battle Isn’t About Fraud
Here’s the thing: this lawsuit isn’t really about computer fraud or terms of service violations. It’s about control. Amazon makes billions from advertising and promoted placements on its site. If AI agents start bypassing all that to make direct purchases based on user preferences and price comparisons, Amazon’s entire business model gets disrupted.
Think about it. Right now, when you shop on Amazon, you’re exposed to sponsored products, recommendations, and all sorts of paid placements. But if an AI agent just finds the best price and buys it without you ever seeing the page? That advertising revenue disappears. Basically, Amazon’s fighting to protect the ecosystem that makes them money.
Perplexity’s Interesting Argument
Perplexity’s defense is actually pretty clever. They’re saying Comet agents are just “extensions of users” with exactly the same permissions as humans. In their blog post about the situation, they draw a sharp distinction between user agents and traditional bots or scrapers.
But is that distinction meaningful? I mean, if thousands of AI agents start hitting Amazon’s servers simultaneously, does it matter whether they’re “acting on user behalf” or not? The technical impact might be identical to traditional bot traffic. Amazon’s argument that “code rather than a lockpick” doesn’t make trespass legal is going to be tested here.
This Is Just the Beginning
This lawsuit feels like the opening shot in what’s going to be a long war. Every major tech company is betting big on AI agents. Google, Microsoft, Apple—they all see a future where AI handles our shopping, travel booking, and routine purchases.
And retailers? They’re caught between wanting to embrace new technology and protecting their existing revenue streams. If AI agents become the primary way people shop online, what happens to all those carefully optimized landing pages and advertising algorithms? The entire digital retail landscape could get flipped upside down.
So where does this leave us? Probably with years of legal battles and evolving regulations. But one thing’s clear: the future of shopping is going to look very different, and companies like Amazon aren’t going to give up control without a fight.
