Appeals court says AI shopping agents are just users in disguise, handing Perplexity a win over Amazon

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals just handed Perplexity a lifeline—and maybe a playbook for the entire agentic AI industry. The San Francisco court overturned a preliminary injunction that had blocked the startup’s AI shopping tools from operating on Amazon, ruling that Amazon is unlikely to succeed on its core computer fraud claim. The logic is simple but seismic: when a user asks an AI agent to log in and buy something, it’s the user doing the accessing, not the AI company. That distinction guts Amazon’s argument that Perplexity itself was violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by scraping its platform.

The case started last November when Amazon sued, accusing Perplexity’s Comet browser and embedded AI agent of covertly logging into private customer accounts to place orders. Amazon cried security risks and pointed to the startup ignoring its demands to stop. Perplexity’s counterpunch was characteristically blunt: the lawsuit was a “bald attempt” to protect Amazon’s ad revenue because AI agents “don’t have eyeballs” for the company’s ubiquitous advertising. A federal judge in California sided with Amazon in March, issuing the now-void injunction and ordering Perplexity to delete any Amazon data it had copied. But this appeals court ruling completely reframes the fight.

What makes this more than just a legal spat is who’s involved and what’s at stake. Perplexity isn’t some random scrappy startup—it’s an AWS customer with commitments in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and Jeff Bezos is a personal investor. Amazon’s own AI ambitions include a “Buy For Me” agent and the Rufus shopping assistant, making its opposition to a third-party alternative look less like a principled stand on security and more like turf protection. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has called the pressure “bullying” and insists agents acting for users deserve the same rights as humans.

Amazon, unsurprisingly, isn’t blinking. A spokesperson said the company “respectfully disagree[s]” with the decision and is evaluating next steps, while maintaining confidence in the underlying case. Perplexity’s Jesse Dwyer framed it as a fight for “the right of internet users to choose whatever AI they want.” The broader case remains unresolved, but this is the first time a federal appeals court has weighed in on whether AI agents can lawfully operate on behalf of users across the web. The precedent could shape how companies like Google, Meta, and countless startups build agentic systems that interact with platforms that don’t want them there. For now, the agents are back at the checkout counter.