Publishers will receive revenue from Perplexity AI after plagiarism accusations.

• Perplexity AI unveiled a revenue-sharing model for publishers on Tuesday, following over a month of allegations of plagiarism.
• Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity's chief business officer, revealed to CNBC in an interview that media outlets and content platforms such as Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel, and WordPress.com are the first to join the "Publishers Program," which offers them a significant revenue share.
• In April, the AI startup, aiming to rival Google, secured funding and doubled its valuation from three months prior, reaching over $1 billion.

Perplexity AI has introduced a revenue-sharing model for publishers, following over a month of allegations of plagiarism. The first to join the company's "Publishers Program" are media outlets and content platforms such as Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel, and WordPress.com.

In June, Forbes and Wired both discovered that Perplexity AI had plagiarized their content without giving proper credit. Forbes found a plagiarized version of its paywalled original reporting within Perplexity AI's Pages tool, while Wired found evidence of Perplexity plagiarizing Wired stories. Additionally, an IP address "almost certainly linked to Perplexity and not listed in its public IP range" visited Wired's parent company's websites more than 800 times in a three-month span.

In April, the AI startup, which focuses on AI-assisted search and aims to rival Google, secured new funding at a valuation of over $1 billion, more than double its previous valuation three months prior.

Perplexity's new partner program allows for revenue sharing based on the number of articles used in an answer. If three articles from one publisher are used, the partner will receive triple the revenue share.

Shevelenko confirmed that the flat rate is a percentage but declined to provide specifics.

More than a dozen publishers, including major newspaper dailies and companies that own them, showed interest in the program less than two hours after its debut, as stated by Shevelenko to CNBC.

The company aims to have 30 publishers enrolled by the year's end, and Perplexity plans to collaborate with some of the publishers' ad sales teams to sell ads against all Perplexity inventory.

"Perplexity will share revenue with publishers when their content is referenced in an interaction, as stated in a blog post. The company will offer API credits and collaborate with ScalePost.ai to provide analytics for "deeper insights into how Perplexity cites their content.""

In January, Perplexity started communicating with publishers and finalized plans for its revenue-sharing program in the first quarter of 2024, according to Shevelenko, who told CNBC that five Perplexity employees were working on the program.

Shevelenko stated that some of the development of Perplexity APIs and technology integration into publisher products stemmed from discussions with publishers.

The new program from Perplexity is being introduced amidst a growing conflict between AI startups and certain media outlets and creators, as many publications are fiercely fighting to safeguard their businesses in the era of AI-generated content.

In June, The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom in the US, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its primary funder in federal court for copyright infringement, following similar suits from publications such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and New York Daily News.

Last year, a group of notable American authors, including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jodi Picoult, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of copyright infringement for utilizing their work to train ChatGPT.

Some news organizations are not preparing for a fight and instead are collaborating with AI startups such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and others. OpenAI and Time magazine announced a "multi-year content deal" in June that granted OpenAI access to current and archived articles from more than 100 years of Time's history. In May, OpenAI also announced a partnership with News Corp., allowing the company to access current and archived articles from The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron's, the New York Post, and other publications.