Amazon Scores First Legal Win Against Perplexity Over AI Shopping

The confrontation between Amazon and Perplexity marks a turning point for AI-driven commerce. By obtaining the judicial blocking of Comet, the American giant is not only targeting an automated purchasing agent, but it is defending its control over access to its platform and its users’ data. Behind this decision made in San Francisco, a broader question arises: how far can AI agents act on behalf of internet users without encroaching on the sovereignty of major platforms?

Amazon obtains a first halt against Comet

Amazon scored a first judicial victory against Perplexity in a case that directly concerns the rise of agentic commerce, while the firm has just strengthened its ties in the field of AI. Indeed, Federal Judge Maxine Chesney granted a preliminary injunction preventing, at this stage, the Comet browser from making purchases on Amazon on behalf of users.

The decision does not yet settle the merits of the dispute, but it already establishes a key point. For the court, the authorization given by a user to an AI agent does not automatically mean authorization given by the platform itself.

This sequence fits into a longer-standing confrontation between the two groups. Amazon claims to have issued multiple warnings before resorting to the courts and asserts that Perplexity continued its operations despite technical blocking measures. The immediate issue is therefore not only commercial. It also concerns the ability of a platform to control automated access to its services, especially when they go through protected customer accounts.

• Federal judge Maxine Chesney granted a preliminary injunction against Perplexity, a provisional measure and not a final judgment ;

• According to the decision, Amazon presented evidence described as “generally uncontested evidence” to support that Perplexity accessed password-protected Prime accounts with user agreement but without Amazon’s authorization ;

• Amazon claims to have asked Perplexity to stop at least five times since November 2024 ;

• After a technical block was implemented in August 2025, Perplexity reportedly deployed an update within 24 hours to circumvent the obstacle ;

• The order requires Perplexity to cease this access and destroy the copies of Amazon customer data collected via Comet. Its enforcement has been suspended for seven days to allow for an appeal.

A case that exposes the fragilities of agentic commerce

The broader reading of the case is wider. It concerns the space platforms are willing to grant to agents capable of buying, navigating, and arbitrating on behalf of the client. Perplexity has based its defense on user rights.

The company says it wants to “continue to defend internet users’ right to choose the AI they want to use”. In a blog post published in November using on-chain data, it had already characterized Amazon’s offensive as intimidation, while arguing that agentic commerce could generate more transactions for the Seattle giant.

This position resonates with an earlier statement by Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, who said agentic commerce “could be very beneficial for e-commerce”, while still, according to him, being insufficiently reliable on personalization and pricing. Amazon does not dispute the idea of AI-driven commerce itself, but objects to a third party inserting itself between its marketplace and its users without its green light.

The other aspect of the case concerns security and the economics of the model. Amazon relied on work from Brave published on October 21, 2025, which showed that Comet had prompt injection vulnerabilities via screenshots and malicious web content.

Brave writes that these attacks show that traditional Web security assumptions “no longer hold when AI agents act on behalf of users” and that this type of assistant can be manipulated by untrusted content executed with the authenticated privileges of the user.

In parallel, Amazon also defends a massive economic stake. The group generated $68.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2025, and an agent jumping directly from query to payment erases sponsored spots that structure part of the platform’s monetization. The industry context adds another layer. AWS and OpenAI announced on November 3, 2025, a multi-year strategic partnership representing $38 billion, with targeted capacity deployment before the end of 2026.

Beyond the setback delivered to Perplexity, the rise of AI agents will collide with the red lines set by platforms. It remains to be seen whether this framework will harden further with new regulatory or political initiatives, such as the decree “Genesis Mission”, now watched as a possible signal of acceleration.