This Media Briefing covers the latest in media trends for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →This week’s Media Briefing dives into Perplexity’s uphill battle to rebuild publisher trust while fending off a growing list of copyright lawsuits.
The words “trust” and “trustworthiness” came up at least a dozen times during a presentation by Perplexity’s head of publisher partnerships, Jessica Chan, at an IAB Tech Lab event last Thursday.
And yet, two and a half years after launching its publisher partnership program, Perplexity is facing an uphill battle to win publishers’ confidence. On May 28 — the same day as Chan’s IAB Tech Lab presentation — CNN filed a lawsuit accusing the AI startup of unlawfully distributing its copyrighted content.
It was the latest in a string of copyright lawsuits publishers have brought against Perplexity. It was sued by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dow Jones last year. BBC threatened Perplexity with legal action last June, alleging the company was reproducing its content “verbatim” without permission.
Chan alluded to the tension between publishers and Perplexity during her presentation, assuring attendees that the AI search engine was committed to reestablishing its credibility.
