From a November 4, 2025 CNBC report:

Perplexity AI accused Amazon of “bullying” on Tuesday after it received a letter from the e-commerce giant demanding it prevent people from using its artificial intelligence browser Comet to make purchases on their behalf.

I do not often agree with Amazon on these sorts of issues, see for example my critique of Amazon allowing AI-generated product listings, its dreams of promoting its own AI shopping assistant, the war crime that is Rufus, or my robots.txt file. With that being said, I dare say Perplexity’s complaints are unavailing. Were I to be in charge of an eCommerce site, I too would want to block Perplexity’s Comet or any third-party AI tools from making purchases. Dealing with customer complaints (sometimes valid, sometimes not) regarding real purchases is probably time-consuming enough without dealing with customer complaints based on AI purchases. But having thrown my two cents on the table, I will allow Amazon and Perplexity to duke it out while I focus on protecting my own sites from AI scrapers (including those sent by Amazon and Perplexity).