Amazon Sues Perplexity to Stop Its AI Tool From Helping Shoppers

Watch Amazon Sues Perplexity to Stop Its AI Tool From Helping Shoppers - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00This is an interesting move. We've covered Comet and Perplexity on the show.

00:05We understand Amazon. Just, I think, start by explaining the grievance that Amazon has

00:10and the accusation Amazon's making against Perplexity and what they're doing.

00:15So Amazon says that, you know, what Perplexity is doing here is masking who's on its website, right?

00:21They've alleged that Perplexity inserted sort of the same code that would make Amazon systems think

00:26it was just a regular Google Chrome user when, in fact, it was an automated agent going on their site.

00:32And so Amazon's raised a whole host of concerns, you know, saying account integrity could be compromised,

00:36saying, you know, if someone has to make a return, you know, who's at fault, what goes on here.

00:41So it's basically kind of a turf war over the customer experience on their retail side.

00:45Okay, we've heard from Perplexity both through a spokesperson,

00:48but they also put out their own commentary on a blog. Summarize it for us.

00:52So they are accusing Amazon of bullying. You know, they say they don't see a meaningful distinction

00:58between a user who has said, listen, I want to purchase something on Amazon.

01:01I'm going to authorize Perplexity to go, you know, make the computer plumbing that makes that work.

01:05They say that's no different than someone navigating with a mouse and keyboard, right?

01:09Obviously, Amazon has a different view, but Perplexity seems to want to take a stand here

01:13and kind of stick up for this new potential commerce venue that they're deploying with their Comet browser.

01:18Right. You cover Amazon so deeply. Like, is this the playbook Amazon goes to?

01:25Are they typically litigious? Are they looking over their shoulder in a real way?

01:30I think they really are looking over their shoulder here.

01:32I mean, they've said AI is going to change everything.

01:35You know, there's debates going on right now about what is a browser.

01:38So this is probably the first of many debates we're going to have, you know,

01:41in public and in private as these companies negotiate on just how, you know,

01:45who owns the experience when agents are going all over the Internet

01:48rather than individual users with hands and eyes.

01:52Really quick, what happens next?

01:55Oh, we'll see if they settle, right?

01:57And I don't think anybody wants to see this go to court

01:59and all this nasty discovery come out, right?

02:01So I think the obvious question in a case like this is can they come to some agreement?