On August 4, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a groundbreaking decision in Amazon.com Services, LLC v. Perplexity AI, addressing the legal status of so-called “agentic AI” tools, which help users expedite various online tasks, including buying goods and services. The Ninth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction that had barred the AI company Perplexity from enabling users of its Comet Browser’s AI assistant feature to access the Amazon Store. In so doing, it became the first circuit to weigh in on the intersection between agentic AI and federal laws—specifically the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which prohibits unauthorized access to protected computer systems.