The BBC has threatened legal action against AI firm Perplexity. The media company claims Perplexity is replicating its content without permission.
The BBC referenced its research from earlier this year, which discovered that AI chatbots like Perplexity shared inaccurate news content. This included false summaries of BBC news reports.
The company wrote these concerns in a letter addressed to Perplexity chief executive officer Aravind Srinivas.
The letter said Perplexity’s content use was an act of copyright infringement and a “breach of the BBC’s terms of use.”
It is the BBC’s first time seeking action against an AI company.
“The BBC’s claims are just one more part of the overwhelming evidence that the BBC will do anything to preserve Google’s illegal monopoly,” Perplexity stated.
AI Summaries
Perplexity meanwhile announced that its “Comet” browser will soon be offered to Windows users. A beta version of the agentic browser is currently only accessible to Apple users on Mac devices.
Comet is considered an “agentic search” browser. It autonomously carries out tasks such as sorting emails or discovering product options. The browser includes information processing capabilities and is integrated with Perplexity’s Deep Research technology.
Browsers like Google also offer a range of AI capabilities. Google Chrome released “AI overviews” last year, which summarise a response to a user’s search query.
The expansion of AI shortcuts on browsers has raised concerns in the media and publishing industries. With a summarised AI overview at the top of search results, users are less likely to scroll and click on a fully written article.
These summaries can include content from news publishers that was taken without authorisation.
This month, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that these AI tools and chatbots have significantly harmed traffic on news sites.
Tim Davie, director general of the BBC, recently spoke out against tech companies using copyrighted material to train AI models.
“If we currently drift in the way we are doing now we will be in crisis,” Davie said. “We need to protect our intellectual property, that is where the value is.”
