The news: AI startup Perplexity is petitioning a federal appellate court to lift a recent order that bans its Comet shopping agent from accessing Amazon.

• Amazon initially sued Perplexity in November for concealing its AI shopping agents; it won a temporary injunction last week to block Comet AI from scraping Amazon’s website.
• A judge ruled that Amazon provided enough evidence that Comet accessed its site without authorization.
• Amazon also claimed that Perplexity’s AI agent caused issues for its ad business, arguing that AI-generated ad traffic requires impressions to be detected and filtered before advertisers can be charged.
• In its response, Perplexity claimed that Amazon benefited from the situation and didn’t experience harm.

Why it matters: The case highlights growing tensions between big platforms and AI agents that automate online tasks like product research and purchasing, and could shape how AI tools interact with ecommerce platforms.

That shift matters because consumers are already using AI tools for shopping research and product discovery; 64% use AI to compare products, 62% for researching categories, and 53% for discovering new brands, per Bazaarvoice. While a much smaller portion (22%) use AI for adding products to their cart and checking out, that could change if AI shopping agents expand beyond research into completing purchases on users’ behalf.

Should Perplexity be allowed to access Amazon, it could set a precedent for whether AI agents are allowed to access or scrape data from closed ecommerce platforms. These shopping agents could increasingly bypass traditional product discovery surfaces, including sponsored display ads, products, and brands.

If AI agents begin to play a larger role in shopping journeys, traditional retail media models could face pressure, particularly search-based ad auctions. For marketers, that means traditional ad placements may have less direct influence over purchase decisions if AI intermediaries increasingly guide product selection.

What marketers should do: Regardless of this case’s outcome, AI tools and agents are likely to increasingly mediate product discovery, research, and eventually purchases. For advertisers, the takeaway is to optimize for AI-driven discovery systems and agent interfaces, rather than just traditional ad visibility.

• 53% of US marketers cite the need to reimagine the path to purchase as a key step to thrive in a future where AI increasingly guides product discovery and decision-making. Adapting marketing strategies for a landscape where AI assistants surface and compare products instead of traditional search results will help marketers optimize for the modern consumer journey.
• Optimizing content for conversational AI interfaces is also a priority, according to 53% of marketers. Structuring content in Q&A formats and clearly describing products, features, and use cases so AI systems can interpret and surface brand offerings will help content remain discoverable, even as AI increasingly mediates customer journeys.