An AI agent can shop on Amazon whether Amazon likes it or not. A US appeals court has overturned an injunction that barred Perplexity’s shopping agent from the retailer, handing an early win to the software that browses and buys on people’s behalf.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that Amazon’s core legal claim did not hold. Because Perplexity’s Comet agent acts only when a user tells it to, the court found it is the user, not Perplexity, who is accessing Amazon’s servers.
Comet is the agent built into Perplexity’s AI browser. Point it at a product and it can navigate Amazon and complete a purchase, the kind of autonomous errand a wave of AI companies are betting will replace ordinary online shopping.
The retailer argued the agent amounted to unauthorised access, said Perplexity had disguised Comet as a normal Chrome browser to avoid detection, and pointed to a 2024 agreement in which Perplexity had agreed to pause agentic shopping.
Perplexity cast the fight as one over who controls a person’s shopping experience, arguing that users should be free to bring whatever software they like to websites they already have the right to visit.
