Appeals Court Lifts Injunction Against Perplexity AI Shopping Tool in Amazon Dispute
An appellate ruling allows Perplexity's Comet browser to access Amazon while litigation continues.
San Francisco — A U.S. federal appeals court has overturned a preliminary injunction that prohibited Perplexity AI’s browser tool from interacting with Amazon.com, marking a significant legal development in the battle over autonomous AI agents accessing commercial websites.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Amazon failed to demonstrate a likely violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or California state computer security laws. The court reasoned that because Perplexity’s Comet browser operates under the explicit direction of individual users, it is the user who accesses Amazon’s servers rather than the AI company itself.
Writing for the appellate court, judges concluded that maintaining an injunction against conduct unlikely to breach anti-hacking statutes does not serve the public interest. The panel also stated that Amazon failed to show irreparable harm sufficient to justify restricting the software tool while litigation proceeds.
“We respectfully disagree with today’s decision on the preliminary injunction,” Amazon said in an official statement. “We remain confident in our case and are evaluating our next steps.”
The dispute escalated in November 2025 when Amazon issued a cease-and-desist letter accusing Perplexity of violating an earlier 2024 agreement to pause agentic shopping tools. Amazon alleged that Perplexity re-enabled the feature by masking Comet’s automated web traffic as standard Google Chrome browser requests. Amazon subsequently filed suit in federal court in March 2026, obtaining a preliminary injunction that halted the tool’s access to its online marketplace.
The ruling sets a notable legal benchmark for the deployment of agentic AI software designed to navigate the web, compile information, and perform transactions on behalf of human users. Online retailers have increasingly sought to restrict automated scrapers and autonomous agents, citing server loads, data privacy, and control over consumer shopping experiences.
While the decision allows Perplexity to restore shopping capabilities within Comet, the core lawsuit remains active in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. Amazon retains options to seek a panel rehearing, petition for an en banc review, or ask the Supreme Court to consider the preliminary injunction decision.
