The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on August 4, 2026 overturned a lower court injunction that had blocked Perplexity AI’s Comet shopping agent from operating on Amazon. The judges ruled that Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims because it is the users, not Perplexity, who access Amazon’s platform through the AI agent. This landmark decision establishes that an AI agent acting under user direction inherits the user’s authorization to access a platform. Perplexity AI, valued at $21 billion as of early 2026, can now continue its operations after this legal victory against one of the world’s largest corporations. This legal framework could apply to any digital service where AI agents act as user proxies, including the emerging decentralized finance ecosystem.
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