Amazon Blocking Perplexity Makes Sense A federal judge just allowed Amazon to bl
By Liranhirschkorn · March 18, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Amazon Blocking Perplexity Makes Sense
A federal judge just allowed Amazon to block Perplexity’s AI shopping agent from accessing its platform.
At first glance, it sounds like Amazon fighting innovation.
But step back for a second and see how it makes sense.
Perplexity built an AI agent called Comet that could shop Amazon for you: browse, compare products, and check out without you ever visiting Amazon’s site.
In other words, the shopper never sees Amazon.
And that’s the problem.
Because Amazon isn’t just a checkout system.
It’s a discovery engine.
Think about a grocery store.
Milk is always in the back.
Not because it’s convenient — but because the store wants you to walk past everything else first.
You see the cereal.
The snacks.
The new products.
The endcap promotions.
That’s how retail works.
Amazon works the exact same way.
Sponsored Products.
Sponsored Brands.
“Frequently Bought Together.”
Comparison widgets.
Lightning deals.
Those aren’t accidents. They’re the economic engine of the marketplace.
Perplexity’s own response basically admitted it:
“AI agents don’t have eyeballs to see the pervasive advertising Amazon bombards its users with.”
Exactly.
AI agents remove browsing.
They remove discovery.
They remove ads.
They turn Amazon into a pure fulfillment layer.
And no retailer, physical or digital, is going to allow that.
That’s why Amazon built Rufus.
Rufus still helps shoppers with AI…
but inside Amazon’s ecosystem, where Amazon still controls the experience.
Outside agents like Perplexity’s Comet remove Amazon from the loop.
So Amazon sued.
And they won (for now maybe).
If AI agents become the main way people shop, ads, cross-selling, and product discovery could disappear.
Instead of browsing dozens of products, shoppers might just get one AI-recommended option.
Right now that’s a small percentage of shopping.
But the battle between closed marketplaces and open AI agents is just getting started.
Amazon won this round.
But the fight over who controls the shopping experience is only beginning.