Perplexity says ‘will not be intimidated’ by Amazon

In a blog post, the Perplexity Team stated: “The point of technology is to make life better for people. We call it innovation, but it’s just the constant process of asking how to make things better. Bullying, on the other hand, is when large corporations use legal threats and intimidation to block innovation and make life worse for people. This week, Perplexity received an aggressive legal threat from Amazon, demanding we prohibit Comet users from using their AI assistants on Amazon. This is Amazon’s first legal salvo against an AI company, and it is a threat to all internet users. For the last 50 years, software has been a tool, like a wrench in the hands of the user. But with the rise of agentic AI, software is also becoming labor: an assistant, an employee, an agent. The law is clear that large corporations have no right to stop you from owning wrenches. Today, Amazon announced it does not believe in your right to hire labor, to have an assistant or an employee acting on your behalf. This isn’t a reasonable legal position, it’s a bully tactic to scare disruptive companies like Perplexity out of making life better for people… Perplexity is fighting for the rights of users. People love our products because they’re designed for people. User choice and freedom are at the heart of everything we build. Perhaps that’s what makes us a target for corporate bullies. But Amazon shouldn’t forget what it’s like to be our size and passionate about a world-changing product. They too once faced intimidating threats and fought aggressively in every case to give users a better choice. Amazon also forgets how it got so big. Users love it. They want good products, at a low price, delivered fast. Agentic shopping is the natural evolution of this promise, and people already demand it. Perplexity demands the right to offer it.”