Amazon vs Perplexity: AI Shopping War Explodes in Cease-&-Desist

Why Amazon Is Declaring War on Perplexity

Seattle, 5 November 2025 – Amazon has opened a new front in the battle for the future of online shopping, sending a 10-day cease-and-desist letter to San Francisco start-up Perplexity AI and threatening further litigation unless the company disables its “Comet” browser agent from making purchases on Amazon.com. The move escalates a month-long skirmish that pits traditional marketplace control against agentic, AI-driven commerce.

The core accusation: fraud and TOS violations
Amazon’s letter, seen by CNBC, claims Comet “coverly accesses private customer accounts”, “impersonates human shoppers” and “systematically breaches Amazon’s Conditions of Use” by automating clicks, auto-filling credentials and scraping pricing data in real time . The retailer also alleges the agent degrades site performance and introduces privacy vulnerabilities because Perplexity stores hashed login cookies on its own servers .

What Comet actually does
Comet, released in beta last month, lets users type a natural-language prompt such as “find me the best-reviewed 4K webcam under $100 and order it with next-day delivery”. The AI then:

• Searches Amazon’s catalogue via mobile HTML endpoints (which lack bot-rate limits)

• Compares specs, prices and shipping dates

• Adds the item to the user’s cart and auto-clicks checkout, entering saved payment and address data

• Returns a one-sentence summary and tracking link

Perplexity insists no Amazon API is used and that users explicitly grant permission for each purchase .

Amazon’s real fear: loss of control
By letting an AI decide which seller wins the Buy Box, Comet disintermediates Amazon’s ad-auction model—a $42 billion revenue stream in 2024. If agents routinely pick the cheapest or fastest option, sellers have less incentive to pay for sponsored placements, eroding Amazon’s margins. Analysts at Bernstein estimate agentic purchases could bypass 12-18 % of paid clicks by 2027, threatening $5-7 billion in high-margin ad income.

Legal chessboard
Amazon’s cease-and-desist does not yet amount to a lawsuit, but it opens the door for claims of computer fraud, trespass to chattels and trademark dilution. Perplexity has 10 business days to:

• Disable Comet’s purchasing module on Amazon.com

• Delete all cached customer credentials

• Provide a log of every automated order placed since 1 October 2025

Failure to comply “will force Amazon to seek immediate injunctive relief”, the letter warns .

Perplexity’s counter-attack: “bullying is not innovation”
CEO Aravind Srinivas posted a 1,200-word rebuttal on the company blog, accusing Amazon of “using legal scare tactics to crush disruptive competition” and “prioritising ad revenue over user experience” . He argues Comet mirrors human behaviour (clicking, scrolling, comparing) and therefore does not violate anti-bot statutes such as the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Srinivas also invited Amazon to offer a secure, rate-limited API for agentic shopping, stating “we’d happily migrate if Amazon embraced open commerce” .

Precedent risk for Silicon Valley
The dispute echoes cases like hiQ v. LinkedIn, where scraping publicly available data was deemed lawful. However, automated log-in and purchase execution crosses a new line because it interacts with authenticated sessions. A federal ruling against Perplexity could criminalise any AI that fills forms on behalf of users, while a win for the start-up could legalise widespread agentic commerce and force platforms to build AI-specific APIs .

Market fallout
Since the cease-and-desist became public, Perplexity’s daily download rate has jumped 38 %, according to Sensor Tower, as tech-savvy users race to test Comet before a potential shutdown. Amazon’s stock dipped 0.7 % on the news, although analysts call the reaction “symbolic” given the company’s $1.9 trillion market cap .

Bottom line
Amazon is not just protecting terms-of-service fine print; it is defending a business model that relies on controlling the shopper’s journey. Perplexity, backed by $165 million in fresh funding, sees agentic commerce as the inevitable next step. With 10 days on the clock, the outcome will shape who owns the click in an AI-first future: the marketplace or the machine that shops for you.

Sources
CNBC – Amazon sends Perplexity cease-and-desist over AI browser agents, 4 Nov 2025
TechBuzz.ai – Amazon blocks Perplexity’s AI shopping agent, 5 Nov 2025
Times of India – Amazon says stop your bots, 5 Nov 2025
Yahoo Tech – Perplexity responds to Amazon threats, 5 Nov 2025
Hindustan Times – Bullying is not innovation, 5 Nov 2025