Perplexity Takes On Amazon

Cue the violins. Perplexity on Tuesday accused Amazon of bullying it by demanding that the AI startup no longer allow its users to send their AI assistants to Amazon to buy stuff. The startup, which is an expert at public relations theatrics, published a long blog post entitled “Bullying Is Not Innovation,” in which it claimed to be “fighting for the rights of users” who are demanding the right to buy stuff through AI agents. I’d love to see a protest march of Perplexity users who feel aggrieved by this state of affairs.

Don’t get me wrong. While websites have long had the right to block bots that attempt to crawl them, it’s also not unheard of for big tech firms to seek to stymie potentially disruptive tactics by newcomers. An AI agent—which in theory can take action on behalf of users, like browsing Amazon’s marketplace and buying stuff—would certainly qualify as a disruptive newcomer. Amazon generates tens of billions a year selling ad space on its marketplace, a highly profitable revenue stream that will diminish if people start using agents to shop rather than browsing themselves. So Perplexity may be right about Amazon’s possible motivation.