Perplexity AI browser and email assistant

Lawsuits against AI chabot companies have been piling up. Latest to face legal trouble is Perplexity. On Wednesday, October 22, social media giant Reddit filed a lawsuit in New York federal court against artificial intelligence startup Perplexity and three data-scraping companies: Lithuania-based Oxylabs, Russia-based AWMProxy, and Texas-based SerpApi. In its complaint, Reddit claims that these companies unlawfully scraped Reddit’s data to train Perplexity’s AI-powered “answer engine,”. Reddit said that the data-scraping companies circumvented its data protection measures to steal data that Perplexity “desperately needs” to power its “answer engine” system.The lawsuit against Reddit is part of a growing wave of legal challenges by content owners against tech companies, accusing them of misusing copyrighted material to train AI systems.Reddit, known for its vast network of interest-based “subreddit” communities, claims its platform is the most frequently cited source for AI-generated responses to user queries. The company accuses Perplexity of collaborating with at least one of the named data-scraping firms to access billions of search results without permission, despite lacking a license to use Reddit’s content. Reddit has previously licensed its data to companies like Google and OpenAI for AI training purposes.The lawsuit follows a similar legal action Reddit initiated against AI startup Anthropic in June, which remains ongoing. Reddit’s chief legal officer, Ben Lee, described the case as part of a broader issue, stating, “AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content—and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale ‘data laundering’ economy.”Reddit alleges it sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter last year, after which Perplexity reportedly increased its citations to Reddit content “forty-fold.” The company is now seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order to prevent Perplexity from using its data

What Perplexity said on Reddit’s lawsuit

In response, Perplexity defended its practices. In a statement, the company said, “Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest.”