Amazon vs. Perplexity: The lawsuit that matters in travel

We are inundated with headlines about generative artificial intelligence (AI), but there is a legal battle currently unfolding that very few of us in travel are paying attention.

Amazon has taken Perplexity to court in a landmark lawsuit that will effectively decide whether an AI agent has the legal right to act as a proxy shopper on the users behalf or not. It is the first major battle of “agentic commerce”—the dawn of a world
where potentially AI robots can do the shopping on behalf of  humans.

For the travel sector, this ruling is a turning point. Will the future remain controlled by legacy middlemen and suppliers, or are we heading for an agentic-driven Wild West? 

Here’s how this battle can reshape the playing field for metasearch, online travel agencies (OTAs) and suppliers.

Scenario 1: The walled garden wins (If Amazon prevails)

The court rules that e-retailers own their data, and AI bots can’t just waltz in, scrape the shelves and impersonate humans without permission This is a victory for the “status quo” of the internet, preserving the current ecosystem.

Implications:

• For metasearch: If Amazon wins, metasearch engines like Skyscanner and Kayak technically win the legal right to block the bots. Their data moats remain intact. But here is the uncomfortable truth: The core “comparison layer” is still at risk
  of being disrupted by a superior experience of AI bots armed with deep user context. Only metasearch brands…