Source: The Guardian

The Guardian covers the lawsuit filed by The New York Times against the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI on December 5, 2025. The newspaper accuses the company of illegally copying millions of articles to train its generative AI models and power its search tools without permission or compensation. The lawsuit alleges that Perplexity's business model is built on "freeriding" on the investment of journalists by scraping paywalled content.

Furthermore, the complaint asserts claims under the Lanham Act, arguing that Perplexity's AI generates "hallucinations"—fabricated information falsely attributed to the Times—which damages the newspaper's reputation and trademark. This legal action joins similar suits from other publishers like Dow Jones and the New York Post, highlighting the intensifying conflict between traditional media organizations and tech companies over intellectual property rights in the age of generative artificial intelligence.