Amazon is reviewing whether Perplexity AI improperly scraped online content
Amazon is investigating claims that artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI harvests content, including from well-known news sites, without permission.
Amazon spokeswoman Samantha Mayowa confirmed Friday that the tech giant was reviewing information it received from news outlet WIRED, which published an investigation earlier this month that found Perplexity appeared to be scraping content from websites that had banned such practices. Perplexity uses servers provided by Amazon Web Services, also known as AWS.
Amazon’s “terms of service prohibit abusive and illegal activities, and our customers are responsible for adhering to those terms,” Mayowa said in a prepared statement. “We routinely receive reports of alleged abuse from a variety of sources and engage our customers in understanding these reports.”
Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick said Friday that the company has determined that services controlled by Perplexity do not crawl websites in a manner that violates AWS’s terms of service.
The San Francisco AI search startup is a darling of top tech investors, including heavyweights like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. But in recent weeks the company has run into trouble over allegations of plagiarism.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has fiercely defended the startup after it published a condensed news story with information and wording similar to a Forbes research piece. It did so without citing the outlet or asking for permission. Forbes later said it had found similar “knock-off” stories from other publications.
Separately, The Associated Press found another Perplexity product invented false quotes of real people.
Srinivas said in an AP interview earlier this month that his company “has never ripped off content from anyone. Our engine doesn’t train on anyone else’s content,” in part because the company simply aggregates what other companies’ AI systems generate.
But, he added, “Forbes has rightly indicated that they prefer more prominent credit to the source.” He said sources are now highlighted more prominently.
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AP reporters Matt O’Brien and Sarah Parvini contributed to this report.