Perplexity Allocates $42.5 Million to Publishers Amid AI Copyright Battle

- New revenue-sharing model to address publisher copyright concerns. - Comet Plus program to give publishers 80% of subscription revenue. On August 26, 2025, AI search startup Perplexity unveiled a $42.5 million revenue-sharing initiative to mitigate allegations of unauthorized content usage. The program introduces a compensation model linked to Perplexity’s $5-per-month subscription tier, Comet Plus. Under this framework, publishers will receive 80% of subscription revenue, while Perplexity retains the remaining 20%. The initiative directly targets ongoing legal disputes with major media outlets, including Forbes, Condé Nast, Dow Jones, and the New York Post, over alleged copyright violations. Participating publishers can earn revenue in three ways: from user clicks on their websites via Perplexity’s Comet browser, from direct citations in AI-generated answers, and from the AI assistant using their resources to complete user tasks. On August 26, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, said in a statement, “AI is helping to create a better internet, but publishers still need to get paid […] So we think this is actually the right solution.” Jessica Chan, the company’s head of publisher partnerships, emphasized the program’s importance, describing the model as essential for fostering a sustainable ecosystem for news in the AI era and arguing that traditional traffic- and click-based compensation models are no longer effective. This new program arises amidst mounting legal challenges. On August 18, Dow Jones and the New York Post succeeded in blocking Perplexity’s bid to dismiss their copyright claims. Despite these setbacks, spokesperson Jesse Dwyer expressed confidence that the company can navigate the lawsuits. In addition, Perplexity has previously explored other ad-revenue sharing initiatives with partners such as Time, the Los Angeles Times, and Fortune. The company also faces allegations from cybersecurity firm Cloudflare, which accuses Perplexity of bypassing protocols to scrape data from websites. Perplexity denies these claims, asserting that its AI assistant accesses websites only in response to user prompts and does not operate as a conventional web crawler for model training. Through this revenue-sharing initiative, Perplexity demonstrates efforts to rebuild trust with publishers while grappling with broader copyright and data collection controversies.