Due in large part to its ground-breaking “answer engine” that combines AI-generated summaries with real-time web citations, Perplexity AI has risen from relative obscurity to the world arena, garnering interest and investment from industry titans like Meta, Apple, and Samsung. According to reports, these tech leaders are exploring deeper integration of Perplexity’s models into their own platforms, signaling confidence in the startup’s rapid growth and potential to rival traditional search engines.
Behind this momentum lies a gold-rush to harness AI for on-the-fly answers—but it’s also triggering fierce backlash over content scraping. The BBC has issued a formal threat of legal action, accusing Perplexity of using its material verbatim without consent and demanding deletion of scraped content as well as compensation.
This comes on the heels of lawsuits from global publishers such as Dow Jones, NY Post, and the New York Times, which accuse the startup of misappropriating journalism to feed its models. Perplexity defends itself, claiming its systems pull from foundation models (like Meta’s Llama) rather than building its own, and assert that critics misunderstand AI’s operation.
Yet the startup faces growing scrutiny—critics argue that its “skip the links” UI not only deprives publishers of traffic but also risks spreading misinformation, with studies finding nearly 17% of responses contained inaccuracies or miscontextualized quotes .
Perplexity is at a crossroads as it apparently approaches a $14 billion value, supported by significant investors. While its potent AI platform is garnering praise and collaborations, it might also need to negotiate content licencing standards and handle tricky legal situations. The broader debate over AI’s ethics, copyright, and credibility continues to unfold—and Perplexity sits at its center.
