In case you missed it, there is a lawsuit between Amazon and Perplexity AI. It is a lawsuit over automated shopping, and it reveals a deeper struggle over who will control the next generation of AI and what happens when autonomous agents start acting on our behalf. This will also affect how we can use rabbit Intern and rabbit Creations. (Believe me, I’m so glad that Amazon is picking on Perplexity AI, and didn’t trigger in the past on Intern tasks that were triggered using rabbit!!)
A tech titan (Amazon) and a startup (Perplexity) are fighting over who controls the next phase of artificial intelligence.
Amazon has sued Perplexity AI over a shopping feature in that company’s browser that allows it to automate placing orders for users. (I remember in the early days of Intern that we were trying to get Intern to access Amazon!)
Now Amazon is accusing Perplexity AI of covertly accessing customer accounts and disguising AI activity as human browsing. (I’m reading this and realize that if rabbit would have been bigger, this could also have been a story about rabbit!)
In any case, this clash is highlighting an emerging debate over regulation of the growing use of AI agents, autonomous digital secretaries powered by AI, and their interaction with websites. Perplexity makes a browser called Comet, which includes an AI agent. Amazon does not want to allow Comet to shop for its users. The rejection has foundation in fact: Microsoft has found in research simulations that AI agents are quite susceptible to manipulation while shopping.
The suit raises a host of questions. Is Perplexity’s (or even rabbit’s) agent a rogue buyer with unacceptable security risks, or is Amazon bullying an insurgent competitor out of the game? Whose interests does a semi-autonomous AI agent represent, the customer or the agent’s maker, and who is liable for its misconduct? The next iteration of AI may hang in the balance of this lawsuit.
