Perplexity

2026-11-02

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

New York Times sues Brave, alleges it scraped publisher content and supplied it to AI firms

The New York Times sued Brave in federal court in Manhattan, alleging the privacy-focused browser scraped its copyrighted content—building an index of over 30 billion webpages—and unlawfully distributed that content to AI companies named in the suit, including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere. Separately, the Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel filed a similar lawsuit; the Times seeks injunctive relief and damages and also targets Brave features that bypass paywalls and block publishers' ads while selling its own.

8.0

2026-11-02

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

The New York Times and other publishers sue Brave, alleging AI scraping and paywall bypass

The New York Times and a group of other publishers — including companies that run the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel — filed lawsuits against Brave Software alleging the company unlawfully scraped and indexed publishers' content in a "Brave Index" and sold paid access to AI firms. The complaints also allege Brave's browser offers a "Paywall blocker" that lets users bypass publishers' paywalls without permission or compensation and names AI companies (Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, Cohere) as recipients of the indexed content.

8.0

2026-10-22

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Retailers and platforms block AI shopping agents — Amazon sued Perplexity and asked Meta to remove Amazon from Muse

AI shopping agents from Meta, Google, OpenAI and startups promise to buy on users' behalf, but many retailers and platforms are blocking them or restricting access. Amazon has sued Perplexity and requested Meta remove Amazon from its Muse agent; banks (JPMorgan) and sites like Target also limit agent access or use bot‑blocking, while some retailers such as Walmart are exploring supported integrations.

7.0

2026-10-21

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Walmart will let third‑party AI agents shop via Agent Gateway and Model Context Protocol

Walmart plans to let customers connect their own AI agents to its site next month via a new Agent Gateway that uses the open Model Context Protocol. The system includes Agent Profiles, default purchase approval, optional spending limits, and rules to prevent agents from changing payment methods or accessing unnecessary personal shopping history; Walmart says it will block agents that violate those terms.

7.0

2026-10-19

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · MIT Technology Review AI

Personal AI agents reshape the web as companies block, adapt, and litigate

The rise of consumer AI agents (e.g., OpenAI’s Dots, Meta’s Muse) is creating a new category of web traffic that many sites and platforms are unprepared for; some services are blocking agents (Amazon, Yelp), others are adapting (Shopify’s agent checkout lanes), and litigation has followed (Amazon’s appeal over Perplexity). The shift could push websites to be redesigned for agents rather than human users, with implications for verification, pricing, ads, and customer service.

7.0

2026-10-17

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Major websites are blocking AI agents (Muse, Dots, Grok, Perplexity)

Multiple popular websites and services are preventing autonomous AI agents — including Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dots, xAI’s Grok, Instinct, and Perplexity — from performing tasks like shopping, booking, and account access. Companies such as Amazon, Yelp, airlines, banks, and Cloudflare’s anti-bot tools are cited as blocking agents or requiring paid data licensing, while some retailers (Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Best Buy, Shopify merchants) have partnered to allow agent access.

7.0

2026-10-15

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Microsoft readies Windows for Nvidia RTX Spark AI laptops with agent store, Prism tuning, and unified memory tweaks

Microsoft and Nvidia showcased RTX Spark laptops and Microsoft has updated Windows to better support local AI agents and Arm‑based RTX Spark hardware. Changes include a new Get Started flow and Windows Store integration for AI agents (Hermes, Perplexity, OpenClaw at launch), Prism emulator optimizations for x64 emulation on Arm, and unified memory and power/performance tuning (e.g., Surface Laptop Ultra support up to 128 GB unified memory and an Nvidia app slider for GPU memory allocation).

7.0

2026-10-13

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Shopify lets third‑party AI agents buy from its catalog using Shop Pay

Shopify will let customers connect third‑party AI agents to their Shop accounts so agents can browse and place purchases across Shopify’s billion‑item catalog; orders use one‑click Shop Pay within the agent conversation, are funneled back to the Shop app, and require buyer approval and configurable rules (e.g., budget or shipping). Shopify previously had a partnership with Meta’s Muse but is now opening agent purchases without bespoke integrations.

7.0

2026-10-12

MONEY · 1 SOURCE · InfoQ AI, ML & Data Engineering

CloudZero CTO Erik Peterson at QCon AI: “You Can't Trust Your AI Bill”

At QCon AI, CloudZero founder and CTO Erik Peterson warned that AI spending is beginning to eclipse traditional cloud bills, described costly behaviors like 'tokenmaxxing' (which he estimates at roughly $5–15B), and outlined how unit economics and incentive structures are creating an engineering cost crisis; he also predicted fully autonomous AI will write, deploy, and govern code by 2028.

5.0

2026-10-10

MONEY · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

a16z finds few US consumers pay for AI subscriptions, spending concentrated among prosumers

Andreessen Horowitz's seventh Top 100 AI list incorporates observed US card spending and finds that while nearly half of US consumers use AI, only about 4.5% had paid personal subscriptions (ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude) in August. Revenue is highly concentrated: the top 1% of payers account for nearly a fifth of observed spending (around $900/month on average), typical paying users spend about $25/month, ChatGPT leads usage and Claude has grown as a paid product, and agent products are beginning to trigger sizable purchases.

7.0

2026-09-25

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · InfoQ AI, ML & Data Engineering

Perplexity replaces DynamoDB with in-house CobbleDB to cut batch-read latency 5x

Perplexity moved its core search serving tier from Amazon DynamoDB to CobbleDB, an internally developed Rust-based distributed key-value store, splitting durable storage (Pillar) from hot serving (CobbleDB) and using Lorry to aggregate batch files in S3. The change reportedly reduced median batch-read latency from 31.4 ms to 5.60 ms, cut p99 tail latency from 123 ms to 24.2 ms, sustained synthetic throughput up to 500k requests/sec, and lowered overall storage costs by at least 20%.

7.0

2026-09-21

COMPANIES · 3 SOURCES · The Verge AI · The Decoder · TechCrunch AI

Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI agent from shopping on its platform

GeekWire reports that Amazon is blocking Meta’s Muse AI agent from making purchases on users' behalf, showing a popup that continued access by an "unauthorized AI agent" violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use. Amazon told GeekWire it was not informed by Meta that Muse would access the store and expressed privacy and security concerns about Muse not identifying itself and potentially capturing credentials; Meta has been contacted for comment.

6.0

2026-09-14

MODELS · 1 SOURCE · OpenAI

Perplexity trusts GPT-6 Astra to run end-to-end systems

According to OpenAI, Perplexity uses GPT-6 Astra to write communications, change software, and monitor production systems, and reports it needs to check the model far less frequently than with earlier models.

7.0