Amazon and Perplexity are fighting over the future of AI shopping

Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Perplexity's AI shopping agent Comet stop making purchases on its platform, claiming it violates terms of service and degrades user experience. The companies had previously agreed to pause such shopping in November 2024, but Perplexity allegedly circumvented this by disguising Comet as a regular browser user rather than a bot. Perplexity defends its tool as a legitimate user agent, while Amazon argues third-party shopping applications should operate transparently and respect platform decisions.