Ninth Circuit Lets Perplexity AI Shopping Agent Keep Operating on Amazon
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for Perplexity’s Comet AI shopping agent to keep operating on Amazon, overturning a preliminary injunction that had barred the tool from shopping on the platform for users.
The Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its claim that Perplexity’s AI agents violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Reuters reported. The panel accepted Perplexity’s core argument that the users, not Perplexity itself, accessed Amazon through the company’s AI tool.
The ruling reverses a March order from a California federal judge who had temporarily blocked Perplexity’s agentic AI shopping tool after finding Amazon had shown strong evidence of unlawful access under federal computer fraud law.
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Amazon sued Perplexity in November, accusing the startup of covertly accessing private Amazon customer accounts through the Comet browser and AI agent, which can log into shopping accounts and place orders for users. Amazon said the system posed security risks and ignored requests to stop. Perplexity argued Amazon was trying to keep users from using AI tools that bypass advertising.
The legal consequence is plain. The decision narrows Amazon’s ability, at least at this early stage, to use anti-hacking law to block an AI assistant acting at a user’s direction. It does not end the case, and Amazon said it disagreed with the decision and was evaluating next steps.
Reaction has focused on the larger stakes for agentic commerce. Reddit users in legal and AI forums debated whether the ruling protects user-controlled automation or weakens platform control. Civil liberties groups including the Knight Institute and ACLU had warned that Amazon’s theory could chill journalism and research using automated tools.
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