Amazon bars Perplexity from allowing AI agent make online purchases for users

Amazon has issued a cease and desist letter to Perplexity AI, asking it to stop its artificial intelligence agent from making purchases on its e-commerce platform.

According to people familiar with the matter, the letter was reportedly sent on Friday, with Amazon accusing Perplexity of violating its terms of service by allowing its browser agent, Comet, to buy items on Amazon without disclosing that it was acting on behalf of a user. 

Perplexity, valued at around $20 billion, denied wrongdoing, saying the move was a “bullying tactic” by Amazon to suppress competition in the fast-evolving market for AI-powered browsing and shopping tools.

Amazon accuses perplexity of breaking its conditions

Perplexity’s Comet browser, launched in July this year, can research and, like in this case, purchase products on behalf of users, among a host of other things.

Amazon’s complaint, however, claims that Perplexity’s agent failed to properly identify itself and in some cases logged directly into users’ Amazon accounts as if it were a standard Chrome browser. The company said this “degraded the customer experience” by bypassing personalization systems and introducing inaccuracies in delivery estimates and pricing.

Amazon’s conditions for its online store make it clear that no one is allowed to use bots or automated tools to scrape data or make purchases. 

“We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers should operate openly and respect service provider decisions,” Amazon’s spokesperson Lara Hendrickson wrote in a statement, adding that Amazon has been sending requests to Perplexity to “remove Amazon from the Comet experience, particularly in light of the degraded shopping and customer service experience it provides.”

Perplexity’s response

In a draft blog post responding to the letter, Perplexity accused Amazon of trying to “eliminate user rights” in order to boost advertising revenue, while maintaining that its Comet browser neither trains on nor scrapes data from Amazon’s site.

Perplexity’s chief executive officer, Aravind Srinivas, rejected Amazon’s characterization and stated that agents should have all the same rights and responsibilities as a human user. He added that “it’s not Amazon’s job to survey who is shopping on behalf of whom.”

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy appeared to acknowledge the challenge during an earnings call last week, noting that most AI shopping agents currently deliver “not good” customer experiences due to limited personalization and inconsistent fulfillment data. 

Still, he hinted that partnerships with third-party developers could emerge in the future. “I do think we will find ways to collaborate,” Jassy said.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is also an investor in Perplexity AI.

Competition and control in the AI era

Amazon’s objections come as it develops its own set of AI-driven shopping tools. Earlier this year, it introduced “Buy For Me,” which lets users purchase items from brand websites within its app, and “Rufus,” an AI assistant capable of recommending and adding products to a cart. 

It recently launched another AI feature known as “Help Me Decide,” and this feature helps hesitant buyers make a buying decision faster. 

Some observers see the company’s action against Perplexity as a defensive move to protect its ecosystem and its advertising business, which earns billions of dollars annually by selling sponsored product placements in search results.

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