Amazon files lawsuit against Perplexity over automated shopping tool
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Amazon has filed a lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity, alleging that the company’s browser-based shopping feature improperly accessed customer accounts and attempted to mask automated activity as if it were being carried out by real human users.
According to the court filing, Amazon claims Perplexity’s “Comet” browser and its built-in agent placed orders and interacted with Amazon’s platform in a way that violated the company’s rules on third-party services.
The suit says Amazon repeatedly instructed Perplexity to stop, but the startup continued to send automated traffic disguised as normal browsing behaviour, putting customer account security at risk.
Perplexity, which has positioned itself as part of a new wave of AI-powered personal assistants that can perform everyday online tasks, has denied wrongdoing. The company framed Amazon’s action as an attempt to restrict competition and limit consumer choice, and said users should be free to decide which AI tools they want to shop through. Perplexity also said that login credentials are stored locally on users’ devices, not on the startup’s own servers.
The dispute arrives at a moment when technology companies are racing to develop AI agents capable of autonomously navigating websites, comparing products, and even completing purchases on users’ behalf — a shift that is rapidly blurring the traditional boundaries between websites, apps, and automated software.
Amazon itself is building similar capabilities, including a “Buy For Me” tool inside its app and an AI assistant named Rufus to help users find products and manage shopping carts. But in this case, the company argues that any third-party agent operating on its site must be transparent about automated activity and respect platform rules.
Perplexity has previously said that Amazon threatened legal action earlier this year unless it blocked its AI agent from interacting with the Amazon Store. It called the legal move part of a wider battle over who controls the future of online shopping — major platforms or users working through independent AI tools.