A tech giant and a hot AI startup are fighting over how much purchasing power AI agents should have.
Perplexity, the $18 billion AI startup that develops the popular AI web browser Comet, published a blog post on Tuesday saying it had received legal threats from Amazon.
“This week, Perplexity received an aggressive legal threat from Amazon to ban Comet users from using its AI assistant on Amazon. This is Amazon’s first legal salvo against an AI company, and a threat to all internet users,” Perplexity wrote in a blog post titled “Bullying Is Not Innovation.”
“Amazon wants to prevent users from using its own AI assistant to shop on its platform,” the AI startup wrote.
“Amazon should welcome this. Easier shopping means more transactions and happier customers. But Amazon doesn’t care about that. They’re more interested in serving ads, sponsored results, and influencing users’ purchasing decisions with upsells and misleading offers,” the company added.
Amazon posted a statement on its website about the matter on Tuesday.
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“We believe it is very easy for third-party applications that offer purchases on behalf of other businesses’ customers to operate openly and respect the service provider’s decision whether or not to participate,” Amazon said.
“This helps ensure a positive customer experience and is also how other businesses operate, such as food delivery apps and restaurants that take orders, delivery service apps and the stores you shop at, online travel agents and airlines that book tickets for their customers,” the statement continued. “Agentic third-party applications such as Perplexity’s Comet have similar obligations, and we have repeatedly requested that Perplexity remove Amazon from the Comet experience, especially given the significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience they provide.”
Perplexity, led by CEO Aravind Srinivas, is one of the most well-regarded AI startups to emerge during the AI boom, but its AI search product has run into legal troubles along the way.
This is a developing story…
