In a letter to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, as published by The Financial Times on Friday, the BBC alleges that Perplexity's default AI model was "trained using BBC content." The BBC said it would seek an injunction unless Perplexity stopped scraping BBC content, deleted all BBC material and submitted a "a proposal for financial compensation."

The BBC has sent a legal threat to Perplexity, citing allegations that the AI startup is scraping the British national broadcaster’s content. In one of its first major copyright interventions in the AI age,

Pointing to findings of significant issues with representation of BBC content in some Perplexity AI responses analysed, it said such output fell short of BBC Editorial Guidelines