Ninth Circuit Overturns Ban on Perplexity AI Shopping

A federal appeals court overturned a temporary ban on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, allowing Perplexity’s AI shopping tools to operate on Amazon’s platform. The decision from the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals marks a significant early ruling on the legal boundaries of AI agents that perform tasks for users online.

The dispute centers on Perplexity’s Comet browser, which features an AI agent capable of logging into users' accounts and making purchases on e-commerce sites like Amazon. Amazon filed a lawsuit in November 2025, accusing Perplexity of violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by accessing its platform without authorization. The company argued that the AI agent posed security risks and had ignored requests to stop its activity. A federal judge granted Amazon a preliminary injunction in March 2026, temporarily blocking Perplexity from using its AI tools on Amazon’s site.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit concluded Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its core claim. The court found that Perplexity itself had not accessed Amazon’s computers without permission under the CFAA. Instead, it was Perplexity’s users, directing the AI agents, who accessed...