Federal Court Rules AI Agents Are Tools of Human Users

A federal appeals court vacated an injunction against Perplexity, ruling that AI agents are tools of their human users rather than independent legal actors. The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by Amazon, which alleged that Perplexity's Comet assistant failed to send a user-agent string identifying itself as an agent while shopping within customer accounts.

The court determined that for the purposes of computer-access law, the human user remains the primary actor. This ruling establishes that the software's level of autonomy does not shift legal agency away from the person or organization employing the tool.

This decision aligns with a growing legal consensus across the United States, Canada, and California. Similar precedents include a Canadian tribunal ruling that held Air Canada responsible for fabricated policies created by its chatbot, reinforcing the trend of holding human principals accountable for the actions of their AI agents.