By Vivian Nguyen
Dec. 5, 2025
Key takeaways:
– The New York Times has filed suit against Perplexity AI, alleging unauthorized use of its reporting.
– Perplexity employs retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to assemble responses from web sources; publishers say that includes copyrighted journalism.
The New York Times has launched a lawsuit against Perplexity AI, claiming the question-and-answer service incorporated Times articles and reporting into its responses without permission or licensing. The complaint alleges Perplexity drew on the newspaper’s journalism when generating outputs, using that material in ways the publisher considers infringing.
Perplexity’s technology uses retrieval-augmented generation, a method that pulls text from online sources and combines it with generative models to create summaries or answers. News organizations have increasingly objected to such workflows, arguing that these systems repurpose their reporting to produce products that benefit AI companies while avoiding compensation to the outlets that produced the original work.
This action follows similar lawsuits from other media organizations, including the Chicago Tribune, which has accused Perplexity of using copyrighted content without authorization. Those filings are part of a growing wave of litigation as publishers press for payment, greater transparency about how their work is used, or restrictions on the ways AI firms incorporate journalistic material.
Publishers contend that many AI services’ business models harm the news ecosystem by diverting readers and ad revenue away from original publishers and by training models on copyrighted journalism without agreed terms. AI companies respond that their systems transform and synthesize publicly available information and that they sometimes negotiate licensing agreements with content providers.
The outcome of the New York Times’ case could help define how AI developers can source and display news material, and whether publishers can obtain new licensing arrangements or revenue streams for their work. As generative AI increasingly relies on third-party content, courts’ rulings may shape industry practices around attribution, payment and the use of copyrighted journalism.