Perplexity
AI search engine with source citations — useful for research, controversial for how it gets those sources.
What should journalists know about Perplexity?
Perplexity is the most useful AI research tool available — and one of the most ethically complicated. It synthesizes web sources with citations faster than any competitor. Its Deep Research mode scored 21.1% on expert-level benchmarks, outperforming Google's AI summaries. For background research on public topics, it saves real time. But the company built its product on other people's journalism. Forbes caught Perplexity turning a Forbes exclusive into an AI-generated article, podcast, and video with no attribution — the Perplexity version outranked the original on YouTube. Wired found Perplexity reproducing sentences verbatim. The NYT lawsuit alleges Perplexity used disguised crawlers and hidden IP addresses to evade detection while scraping millions of articles. By early 2026, Perplexity faces 40+ copyright cases in U.S. courts. The company launched a Publisher Program and abandoned advertising (Feb 2026) to rebuild trust, but the fundamental tension remains: Perplexity's product depends on ingesting the journalism it competes with. For journalists, there's also a privacy dimension. Your search queries reveal what stories you're working on, what sources you're investigating, what angles you're pursuing. Perplexity collects and retains this data by default. Free and Pro users' queries can be used for AI model training unless you opt out in settings. Use it for non-sensitive research with eyes open.
Background research on public topics, fact-checking public claims, exploring unfamiliar beats, building source lists, synthesizing publicly available information quickly.
Research related to active investigations. Source-identifying queries. Any search that reveals an unpublished story angle. Do not search for confidential sources by name. The company retains query data and has shown a pattern of treating others' content as raw material.
Security & Privacy
Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers
Data is scrambled when stored on their servers
Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data
Privacy policy summary
Perplexity collects search queries, browsing behavior, device info, IP addresses, and interaction patterns. Free, Pro, and Max users have AI Data Retention enabled by default — your queries can train their models unless you manually opt out in settings. Enterprise and API (Sonar) customers get zero data retention and no training use. Perplexity uses third-party analytics and shares data with service providers. Account deletion removes personal data within 30 days. The opt-out exists but is buried, not surfaced during onboarding.
How to protect yourself:
Use Perplexity only for non-sensitive research. (1) Go to Settings and disable AI Data Retention immediately — it's on by default. (2) Never search for confidential sources by name. (3) Don't research story angles that reveal an unpublished investigation. (4) Use a VPN and incognito mode for anything approaching sensitive. (5) Consider DuckDuckGo + Claude or ChatGPT as an alternative workflow that separates search from AI synthesis, giving you more control over what each service sees. (6) Verify every citation — Perplexity cites real URLs but sometimes fabricates the claims it attributes to them.
Search queries are sensitive journalist data. Perplexity collects and retains them by default, with AI training opt-out buried in settings. The company's documented pattern of bypassing robots.txt, disguising crawlers, and reproducing publisher content without permission reveals how it treats consent. 40+ copyright lawsuits pending. Useful tool, real risks. Use only for non-sensitive, public-record research.
Who Owns This
Known issues
The New York Times sued Perplexity in Dec 2025 for copyright infringement, alleging Perplexity used disguised crawlers, undeclared user agents, and hidden IP addresses to scrape millions of articles while evading detection — violating both copyright law and the NYT's terms of service. Condé Nast (July 2024) and Forbes (June 2024) sent cease-and-desist letters accusing Perplexity of plagiarism and unauthorized content use. News Corp (Wall Street Journal), Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster, Nikkei, Asahi Shimbun, Reddit, and the Chicago Tribune have also filed suits or complaints. By early 2026, Perplexity faces 40+ copyright-related cases in U.S. courts. Cloudflare confirmed Perplexity's crawlers bypassed robots.txt restrictions. Forbes documented Perplexity turning a Forbes exclusive into an AI article, podcast, and video with no attribution. Wired found verbatim sentence reproduction. On citation accuracy: a GPTZero investigation found the average user encounters an AI-generated source within three queries. A Columbia Journalism Review test found Perplexity had a 37% hallucination rate on citations — it cites real URLs but fabricates the claims attributed to those sources. The Publisher Program (launched July 2024, expanded 2025) attempts to address content licensing, but most major publishers who've sued are not participants.
Pricing
Free (limited searches, GPT-4o-mini). Pro: $20/month (unlimited searches, GPT-4o, Claude, file uploads, Deep Research). Max: $200/month (higher limits, priority access). Enterprise: custom pricing with zero data retention.
None known. Perplexity donated $250K to Northwestern Medill for AI-journalism research, but offers no journalist pricing.
This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-02, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.
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