{"id":628,"date":"2025-11-05T17:11:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T09:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/?p=628"},"modified":"2025-11-05T17:11:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T09:11:56","slug":"amazon-bans-perplexitys-ai-shopping-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/05\/amazon-bans-perplexitys-ai-shopping-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Bans Perplexity&#8217;s AI Shopping Agent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" id=\"42I5JO7O\">According to the latest news as of early Wednesday, Amazon has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the AI search startup Perplexity, demanding that it prohibit its AI browser, Comet, from shopping on behalf of users on Amazon&#8217;s online marketplace .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the letter, Amazon accused Perplexity&#8217;s AI agent of employing deceptive means while shopping for users, thereby violating the website&#8217;s terms of service . Amazon also alleged that Perplexity&#8217;s AI tool degrades the Amazon shopping experience and introduces potential privacy vulnerabilities .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"660\" height=\"333\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ab4278f8d2bcfb51624eb29715381026__urlhttp3A2F2Fdingyue.ws_.126.net2F20252F11052F9da1807bj00t57y00006rd001hv00r5g.jpgthumbnail660x2147483647quality80typejpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-629\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ab4278f8d2bcfb51624eb29715381026__urlhttp3A2F2Fdingyue.ws_.126.net2F20252F11052F9da1807bj00t57y00006rd001hv00r5g.jpgthumbnail660x2147483647quality80typejpg.jpg 660w, https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ab4278f8d2bcfb51624eb29715381026__urlhttp3A2F2Fdingyue.ws_.126.net2F20252F11052F9da1807bj00t57y00006rd001hv00r5g.jpgthumbnail660x2147483647quality80typejpg-300x151.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As background, Amazon&#8217;s marketplace terms of service prohibit &#8220;the use of any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools&#8221; . In November 2024, Amazon had requested that Perplexity not deploy AI agents capable of shopping on its website until a mutual agreement was reached, to which Perplexity agreed and complied at the time .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to insiders, when Perplexity launched its AI browser named Comet this summer, these agents were disguised as &#8220;Google Chrome browser users&#8221; . Amazon stated in its letter that as Perplexity refused to stop this behavior, it attempted technical blocks, but Perplexity then released a new version of Comet that bypassed these measures .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Amazon&#8217;s Stance<\/strong><br>Amazon spokesperson Lara Hendrickson stated in a declaration: &#8220;We believe that when third-party apps make purchases for customers on other platforms, they should operate openly and transparently and respect the decision of the service provider on whether to participate&#8221; .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She added that other companies, including food delivery platforms and online travel agencies, operate in the same manner .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This conflict provides an early preview of the evolving &#8220;AI-era commerce war&#8221;: how major and minor internet platforms will respond to third-party AI tools operating on their turf .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taking Amazon itself as an example, the company is also training its own AI agents, offering functions like recommending products and placing orders for consumers .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From a commercial perspective, third-party AI agents pose a direct threat to Amazon&#8217;s highly profitable advertising business, which primarily earns revenue by selling prominent placement for product search keywords . If external robots represent customers in shopping, sellers&#8217; advertisements become worthless .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Perplexity&#8217;s Response<\/strong><br>In response to Amazon&#8217;s eviction notice, Perplexity promptly published an open letter titled &#8220;Bullying Is Not Innovation&#8221; .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This AI startup, valued at over $20 billion, stated that Amazon is suppressing a competitor in the AI agent space and asserted that users should have the right to choose their preferred agent for shopping on Amazon . The startup wrote: &#8220;This is a typical bullying tactic aimed at intimidating disruptive companies like Perplexity that are trying to improve people&#8217;s lives&#8221; .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Addressing Amazon&#8217;s accusation of &#8220;disguising AI agents,&#8221; Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas responded that he sees no need to distinguish between users and the AI agents authorized to act on their behalf . He argued that AI agents should enjoy &#8220;the exact same rights and responsibilities as real human users,&#8221; and more importantly, &#8220;this is not something Amazon should scrutinize&#8221; .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interestingly, amidst the interconnected &#8220;AI ecosystem&#8221; in the US tech circle, Perplexity and Amazon have a close relationship . Srinivas mentioned that his company has placed hundreds of millions of dollars in orders with Amazon Web Services (AWS), and he himself has publicly appeared at AWS events . Furthermore, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is also an investor in Perplexity .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the latest news a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,4],"tags":[24,55,155,154],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-companies","category-investment","category-policy-impact","tag-ai","tag-amazon","tag-bans","tag-perplexity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finndy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}