Britannica, which is being represented by lawyers from Susman Godfrey, did not specify how much money it was seeking in damages.
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges Perplexity’s summaries use information generated from Britannica. Those summaries keep users from clicking on Britannica sites, denying the publisher the opportunity to sell subscriptions or generate advertising revenue from site visits, according to the complaint.
“Perplexity’s so-called ‘answer engine’ eliminates users’ clicks on Plaintiffs’ and other web publishers’ websites—and, in turn, starves web publishers of revenue—by generating responses to users’ queries that substitute the content from other information websites,” the lawsuit said.
The suit used examples of Perplexity searches on topics including druids, quantum physics and Amelia Earhart, to show how the results relied on Brittanica information.
Chicago-based Britannica, publisher of the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the centuries-old namesake encyclopedia series, has shifted its approach in recent decades as information became readily available on online platforms such as Google and Wikipedia. During this time, Britannica moved toward selling online education software to schools.
The company, established in 1768, also launched an AI tool called Britannica AI to assist users of its site. The feature uses technology to provide answers to questions using information from Britannica’s articles.