Amazon and Perplexity Clash Over Use of Third-Party AI Shopping Agents

Amazon and artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity are in a dispute over the deployment of third-party AI agents for shopping.

Perplexity said in a Tuesday (Nov. 4) blog post that it received an “aggressive legal threat” from Amazon demanding that it prohibit the users of its Comet browser from using their AI assistants to shop on Amazon’s platform.

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

“Amazon […] forgets how it got so big,” Perplexity said in its post. “Users love it. They want good products, at a low price, delivered fast. Agentic shopping is the natural evolution of this promise, and people already demand it. Perplexity demands the right to offer it.”

In a statement posted on its website in response to Perplexity, Amazon said that it thinks 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.

“This helps ensure a positive customer experience and 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 airlines they book tickets with for customers,” Amazon said in its statement.

“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,” the company said.

It was reported in July that Amazon was taking steps to block other companies’ AI shopping tools from its website. The eCommerce giant updated the code on its site to include language that keeps out new AI agents from Google , and it took similar precautions with bots from companies like Perplexity, Anthropic and OpenAI .

PYMNTS reported in September that the rise and evolution of agentic AI have compelled companies to assess both the economic potential and the associated risks of this emerging technology.