Reddit Files Lawsuit Against Perplexity for Allegedly Using Its Data to Train AI

Reddit has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup Perplexity in a New York federal court, accusing the company of illegally scraping Reddit’s data to train its AI-powered search engine. The case also names three other companies — Oxylabs (Lithuania), AWMProxy (Russia), and SerpApi (Texas) — alleging they bypassed Reddit’s data protection systems to collect information without consent.According to the complaint, Reddit claims Perplexity “desperately relied” on this scraped data to build and enhance its “answer engine.” The lawsuit follows a similar case Reddit filed against another AI company, Anthropic, earlier this year, which is still ongoing.In its statement, Perplexity said, “Our approach is responsible and factual. We aim to deliver accurate AI-generated responses, and we reject any threats to openness and public interest.”

Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer, Ben Lee, criticized the current AI landscape, stating, “AI firms are competing fiercely for quality human content, and that race has fueled an industrial-scale ‘data laundering’ economy.”The platform, which hosts thousands of topic-based “subreddits,” said it is one of the most frequently referenced sources for AI-generated answers. Reddit has legally licensed its content to companies like Google and OpenAI for training purposes — but noted that Perplexity has no such agreement.Reddit added that it had previously sent a cease-and-desist notice to Perplexity last year, after which the AI startup allegedly increased its use of Reddit citations by over forty times.Reddit is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order preventing Perplexity from using its data further. Meanwhile, SerpApi denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight the claims, while Oxylabs expressed “shock and disappointment,” saying Reddit never reached out to them directly.