Amazon complains that Perplexity's agentic shopping bot is a terrible customer

Amazon.com has sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity in which it insists the AI company prevent its Comet browser from making automated purchases on behalf of users. Comet, like OpenAI's Atlas and several other browsers, includes a large language model that can automate web browsing and do things like make online …

[sarusa]

It must be failing super hard

The only reason Amazon would object to this is if the number of returns for items Perplexity bought is just through the roof. And just from what we know about how shitty LLMs are at doing stuff nobody wants this would be 100% predictable and predicted. Otherwise Amazon would love 'AI' automatically buying their shit for people without the people even being consulted on it.

> Perplexity objects to Amazon's demand and has published a lengthy blog post characterizing the e-tail giant’s stance as "a threat to all internet users.”

Like hell it is, I do not need prices to go up and greenhouse gasses to spike because your shitty bot is causing 90% of purchases to be returned.

Note: I find it increasingly impossible to write about 'AI' without constantly invoking 'shit', sorry about that, but anything less than 'shit' for all this enshittification feels insufficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It must be failing super hard

"AI" & "shit" are synonyms. Or are becoming so.

[AVR]

Re: It must be failing super hard

Tech bros are not fond of competition, and Amazon has skin in this game - their Rufus AI shopping assistant as mentioned briefly in the article. Use of someone else's AI shopping assistant is money that's not going to Bezos, you can't expect him to tolerate that!

[Filippo]

Re: It must be failing super hard

I think Amazon has two problems here.

The first is likely excessive numbers of returns. I expect that the agent, like all LLMs, is basically insane and is probably prone to making weird and wrong purchases, which users then return. I think Amazon generally makes a loss on returns, which only works because returns are statistically unlikely. If Amazon sees a surge on returns because of mad LLMs, the usual return policies become no longer workable. I think this is a fair point for Amazon.

The second is more insidious - the LLM is not susceptible to marketing manipulation (or, more accurately, not the same manipulation that is successful on humans). Amazon really wants to shove its sponsored products down your throat as deep as it can push them. The LLM, on the other hand, might easily go look into page 2+ of the search results, where sellers who (*gasp*) have not paid for privileged positioning might find themselves, even though their product is actually a far better fit for the query than the ones on page 1. This just won't do for Amazon.

[DS999]

Or maybe it is succeeding too well

If it avoids the products Amazon is trying to push on people and selects the one that fits the customer's needs.

Yeah I know, probably not, but that's what Amazon fears long term. They don't want a third party getting in between them and their customers.

[tiggity]

Re: It must be failing super hard

@Sarusa

"The only reason Amazon would object to this is if the number of returns for items Perplexity bought is just through the roof. "

Not the only reason.

If we assume Amazon skew their results based on who pays the biggest bribes, whatever makes the most profit (or some other weighting) - whatever it is, I would say it is highly unlikely Amazon search results gives a user the best / cheapest* result in the first 10 hits .

"AI" s shit, however it would straggle to do a worse job of finding a good value match for a users requirements than Amazon does.

* just did a quick experiment, if you search for cheapest result on Amazon, it does a very "interesting" interpretation of your search query to give total junk (very dubious match to your search query, but cheap) results in the first few pages, however the sponsored results it pops up manage to be a very good match (but typically not good value).

Best way to search Amazon is (instead of using Amazon search) to use your search engine of choice & restrict it to Amazon web site.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

positive customer experience

If customers use AI bots, how are for Amazon to trick the customers to signing up for Amazon Primer?

[vtcodger]

Re: positive customer experience

If customers use AI bots, how are for Amazon to trick the customers to signing up for Amazon Prime

It'll be challenging, but I imagine that Amazon will find a way.

[JimBz]

Re: positive customer experience

Sign the AI bots.

[doublelayer]

Agree with nobody

I can't agree with Amazon because they're effectively saying that users are supposed to get their permission before choosing to use software of their choosing spend their money. Neither of those things should be Amazon's business. However, the two reasons why Amazon might care about it are either Perplexity messing up so often that Amazon's returns costs are noticeably increasing, which indicates that Perplexity's software is crap and Amazon is paying for it, or Amazon is trying to steer people toward purchases that they make more money on, which would mean Amazon's abusing its market power and expecting to have a right to enforce it. Nobody comes out of this looking good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Agree with nobody

Most likely its, as you say, Perplexity buys what's it's told to buy and does not get distracted by all the ad clutter Amazon slings at you when you are on their site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Agree with nobody

Yeah, I guess Perplexity shopping bots vex those double-dipping Amazon behavioral surplus surveillance capitalism digital inquisition probes aimed at ad-based nudging of customer actions in the direction of increased profit margins for the tat-bazaar -- ensuring a "positive customer experience" for their corporate bottom line (at our expense).

It's like an algorithmic version of Spy vs. Spy ... most enjoyable! ;)

[doublelayer]

Re: Agree with nobody

I don't know that I'd count out the option that the bot orders something wrong and the user ends up having to return it. In my experience, you have to be pretty thorough at checking product descriptions, specs, and reviews whenever you have any special requirements, and AI bots tend not to be great at that. I have not allowed the bot to purchase things on my behalf and am not willing to, but I did just try making Perplexity find a specific item for me and it did not give me good results. I think both possibilities are likely, and possibly even that both are happening. I would not jump to the conclusion you appear to be that this is all Amazon; after all, I have stated that I support nobody and if Perplexity was actually doing a great job and avoiding Amazon's unilateral bad behavior, I would support them.

[vtcodger]

Re: Agree with nobody

The return thing might have a rational answer which would be requiring that the purveyors of purchasing bots reimburse Amazon for handling of AI purchasing errors. I would guess that actually having to take financial responsibility for their mistakes would put an end to AI purchasing bots until the bots get to be pretty darn good. That would, one suspects, be something we wouldn't see for perhaps a decade or two. Maybe never.

[doublelayer]

Re: Agree with nobody

There are a lot of problems with AI that could be fixed by having the makers of the AI pay for the costs. They are very good at making sure they never have to, and as things go, this is one of the easiest ones for them to get out of. When a user decides to give Perplexity permission to spend their money, they're choosing to run software and take the risk of getting bad purchases. They take the financial cost before the return is processed. Therefore, the cost is on them. If we compare to stealing copyrighted data or even burdening servers with floods of requests, the AI company is much less culpable.

Since they have never been punished for doing illegal things in the first case or legal but harmful things in the second, there's almost no chance they'll get anything for not being great purchasing bots. Instead, the costs will likely be put on all Amazon customers, eventually all customers of anything Perplexity can buy from, as they change their return policies. Free returns was one of those things that was nice as long as most people weren't unreasonably overusing it, but like anything with a large shared potential cost, it won't last forever when it gets too expensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Agree with nobody

Perplexity buys what IT THINKS it's been told to buy.

It's a cab, innit?

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Screw Amazon

While I have no particular love for Perplexity, it seems like people are using their freedom of choice to use it to their benefit in some fashion, and that is surely their right. From what the article says, Amazon's complaint is that customers are bypassing Amazon's recommendations and buying other products, which, again, is surely their right. What's next, Amazon mandating that customers must buy the products it recommends?

[Alumoi]

Re: Screw Amazon

Bingo!

That's the real reason, customers NOT buying the crap Amazon tries to trick them to buy.

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

"...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

Amazon has "customer service"? Who knew?

[Richard 12]

Re: "...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

They very likely mean that the returns rate is too high, and it's costing them a lot of logistics money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

To be fair ... YES, Amazon does have 'Customer Service' !!!

I have had very good 'Customer Service' from Amazon UK not that I buy large amounts from Amazon.

I can confidently say it is 10000% better than eBay UK !!!

Also never had a quibble about a return, though my returns have been genuine and NOT gaming the system.

[We all know that on-line returns are abused by MANY and then the majority suffer the consequences of the few !!!]

Pain free returns is their major selling point, just like many on-line stores the quality can be variable (particularly as virtually everything is made in china) and QC is variable for so many goods that are made in china !!!

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

Some years ago I had to try to talk to Amazon Customer Service, to report an illegitimate account registered to my wife's email address. It's an email that she NEVER uses (not her primary), so suddenly getting a "welcome to Amazon" email there, followed by multiple purchases of software and music using only gift cards, was a surprise. (And yes, at the time, you could register for an account and start purchasing without Amazon ever verifying that the email address was yours.) Despite the email being something like karen123, and the Amazon user's name being eg. Sue, the customer service folks just couldn't accept that it wasn't legit.

Once I did a password reset, logged into the account, and changed the user's name to "Fraudulent Account", they were willing to listen...

[Phil Bennett]

Re: "...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

Amazon's Customer Service used to be legendarily good.

Now, not so much. I've cancelled my Prime account that I had for over a decade this year for a number of reasons. Primarily, stuff just does not get delivered as it should, ranging from repeatedly delivering to the wrong place despite delivery notes written with Amazon customer service that say to phone me.

Additionally though, items from 3rd parties are frequently poorly described or just plain wrong. Reporting them leads nowhere (and you can't get any follow-up on any reports for vague internal reasons - they just say trust us, even when you're reporting the same issue for the 3rd time).

Item sorting is hilariously, obviously broken and customer support will lie to you face about it. Do a test - search for an item, any item. See how many results you get. Now sort those results by any criteria (price being the obvious). Look at how many results you have. Sorting shouldn't change that number (maybe a couple if the number of Amazon's sponsored bs placements changes) but it'll be wildly different.

[mark l 2]

Re: "...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

My father opened an Amazon seller account a few years ago and it was suspended after just a few days for "violation of T&Cs", at that point he had not even uploaded a single product to sell, and in trying to get to the bottom of why it was suspended by talking to Amazon support it would have been easier to get blood from a stone. And in the end he gave up and just continued selling on ebay.

Oh if your seller account gets suspended they also close any related other accounts, so his Amazon Prime video stopped working and he could no longer log into Amazon to buy anything, nor can you use their website to contact customer services chat if you arent logged in with an account.

Eventually after he threatened to charge back the Amazon prime subscription with the bank if they didn't restore the account they did enable it again after about a week. But that's when we learned not to give Amazon anymore money.

[Chet Mannly]

Re: "...degraded ... customer service experience it provides."

Well I had a customer service agent delete my access to Amazon after leavng a well-deserved 1 star rating for his 'service' (the guy was extremely rude, didn't help at all and left me with a $250 bill for something I returned, Amazon had received according to tracking but I assume then lost).

Didn't lock me out of my account, he deleted it from all Amazon sites. First I knew was when I turned on my Kindle and watched my entire ebook collection vanish before my eyes (luckily I had everything backed up).

Called Amazon the old fashioned way and they told me I didn't exist on any of their ssytems. They had to go to a backup to restore me.

So yeah, what was that you were saying about customer service?

[Dan 55]

Another of Amazon’s concerns appears to be that Comet's AI agent may purchase products other than those the e-commerce giant’s personalized product recommendations suggest.

So what? Not everyone wants to buy Amazon Basics (ripped off of best sellers and promoted by Amazon).

[Anonymous Coward]

Anytime I see a product listing that says it's recommended for me, I skip it - if you have to pay someone to push your tat, it's probably junk. (The same listings show up elsewhere in the regular search results anyway.)

[James R Grinter]

Pay to play

I mean, how else would a vendor get you to buy their unpronounceable version of the 50+ listings of the same product from the same factory, with the same picture, cluttering up the results? (Obviously Amazon don’t care, they get their cut either way, but perhaps they are all the same seller too.)

Amazon’s everything store is a dumpster fire.

[Chris Tierney]

Consumer choice

If I choose to use perplexity to shop for me then surely that's my choice? (I'd probably not ATM)

With ever diminishing eyesight and cognitive abilities I'd probably prefer the 'option' of asking my digital assistant.

They will need do something since it seems the 1x Neo is struggling with basic practical tasks and might be demoted to online shopping.

[SnailFerrous]

Amazon don't want competition for their own, in development and soon to be announced, AI buying bot.

This is one of those situations where you hope there is a way for both sides to lose.

[Anonymous Coward]

Random money maker for idiots !!!

Simple answer for the customers is to NOT use a bot at all !!

If you are not able to select the item yourself than you need to research the options further NOT let a 'Clever pattern matcher' make a guess and order some random item that MIGHT match your request.

Sticking a pin in a list would be better !!!

Final option is to realise that if you cannot decide then maybe you don't need the 'tat' at all !!!

:)

[Fonant]

Re: Random money maker for idiots !!!

Or, perhaps even shop at a specialist store (online or IRL) and actually ask a human for advice if you need it.

I will use Amazon as a search engine for "what products are usually available" and "what are they called?", and then will always buy from a different shop. Amazon's near-monopoly does not need to be encouraged. I'm old enough to remember when they only sold books!

[Dunstan Vavasour]

Years of this sort of shitty bickering ahead of us

Welcome to greedy bastard land.

In the red corner you've got world's biggest manipulative retailer. Everything is based on screwing suppliers, manipulating customers and abusing staff.

In the blue corner you've got the AI grifters who are in the early stages of inserting themselves in the purchasing chain. Assume this is so that later they can sell promoted positions on their godawful LLM damaged browsers.

And they'll end up bickering about who gets the upper hand in abusing customers for their own enrichment. A pox on them all.

[cd]

Re: Years of this sort of shitty bickering ahead of us

And the ref is citrusy...

[Pope Popely]

Satisfaction

Seeing those companies fight increases my satisfaction with both of them!

[Anonymous Coward]

A tool that ignores 100 layers of Amazons Dark interface, so you buy only what you intended without additional impluse buys, oh my!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, what it thinks you intended, anyway. Which may not have any relation to what you were actually asking for.

[Irongut]

No shirt, no shoes, no service

I don't believe Perplexity's LLM is wearing a shirt or shoes, surely it is the proprietor's right to refuse service.

[tiggity]

Re: No shirt, no shoes, no service

@Irongut

If I (human when I last checked) was to order something online, a high probability I would not be wearing shoes or shirt when placing that order.

.. typing this in just my pants (the UK version of pants! not the US one)

[Blackjack]

I can't believe I am agreeing with Amazon here but using a bot to make automatic purchases can end very badly. Is one thing to set alerts for when something goes on sale but bots won't read the fine print..

[Chet Mannly]

All about Amazon losing their grip

While no doubt return rates are higher can't help thinking this is more about Amazon. In particular:

1 - losing their 'promotion power'. After all a bot wont get distracted by recommendations, constant plugs for Amazon's basics and Prime, and will happily look beyond the first page containing all the sellers that have paid to be there to find exactly the same product for a cheaper price. They also can't tailor prices to different people's perceived purchasing power.

2 - even worse these bots will look at multiple sites so instead of being a site people look to buy things Amazon just becomes another data point for a bot and their brand diminishes. There will probably come a time where people probably wont even visit their site, just ask the agent to find X and after reviewing the options say to go ahead and buy it.

[Tron]

What this means for us...

..is endlessly having to click on those irritating *%£&ing screens where some pain-in-the-arse service is trying to prove you are human and you are not using an AI browser every five minutes, on ebay etc.

Surely if this service was any good it would be indistinguishable from a user. Amazon would then have to keep swopping its tick box positions for 'No I don't want Prime, piss off', confusing elderly customers. Pointless waste of time.

As several posters have said, this may be more about Amazon wanting people to use their own auto-shopping tech. That's like MS banning macros that MS didn't write.

Ultimately, do we care about anyone stupid/rich enough to allow AI to spend their money? To which the answer for most of us would be 'no'.

[James R Grinter]

“Unlock new value with agentic AI on AWS”

… is the AWS sales pitch. “AI agents are set to redefine how we work and live.”

Just don’t use it to try and find the best deal, eh?

[Jonathon Green]

Oh look!

It’s another one of those fights I can cheer on from the sidelines as the protagonists gouge each others eyes out and I don’t have to feel bad about whoever loses!