Appeals Court Overturns Ban on Perplexity AI Shopping Agents on Amazon

A U.S. appeals court overturned a March ruling that temporarily barred Perplexity’s artificial intelligence-powered agentic shopping tools from accessing Amazon’s platform, Reuters reported Tuesday (Aug. 4).

Amazon argued that Perplexity’s AI agents violated a federal hacking law, while Perplexity countered that it did not violate the statute that prevents people from accessing computers without permission, according to the report.

When overturning the ban on Tuesday, the appeals court ruled that Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its claim and that it was Perplexity’s users, not Perplexity itself, who accessed Amazon’s platform, per the report.

A Perplexity spokesperson said in the report, after the ruling: “Perplexity will continue to fight for the right of internet users to choose whatever AI they want.”

An Amazon spokesperson said, per the report: “We respectfully disagree with today’s decision on the preliminary injunction. We remain confident in our case and are evaluating our next steps.”

The dispute between Amazon and Perplexity over the deployment of third-party AI agents for shopping came to light in November, when Perplexity said in a blog post that it received an “aggressive legal threat” from Amazon demanding that it prohibit the users of its Comet browser using their AI assistants to shop on Amazon’s platform.

Perplexity said in its post that it would not be intimidated and that it would fight to ensure users can deploy agentic AI “to take control of their digital lives.”

In a November statement posted on its website in response to Perplexity, Amazon said that it thought it is “fairly straightforward” that third-party applications offering to make purchases for customers from other businesses should respect businesses’ decisions about whether or not to participate.

When Amazon secured a temporary injunction to stop Perplexity’s AI agents from shopping and making purchases on its site, the federal judge said that Amazon provided “strong evidence” that Perplexity’s Comet browser accessed its site without authorization from Amazon, and that Amazon had shown “a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim.”

According to Tuesday’s report by Reuters, the appeals court’s decision to overturn the ban is the first ruling by a federal appeals court to address whether AI agents that are acting on behalf of users can legally access online platforms.