• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Gannett Co., Inc. and Perplexity have formed a strategic partnership that will allow Perplexity to license content from over 200 local Gannett publications and USA Today. 

As part of this arrangement, Gannett’s journalism will be integrated into the Perplexity Publisher Program, making it one of the firm's largest U.S.-based media partners, and into Perplexity's AI-powered search experiences like Comet, its new agentic web browser.

Michael Reed, chairman and CEO of Gannett contends that this alliance is part of Gannett’s commitment to leveraging transformative technology and to ensure fair compensation and proper attribution for its content. 

Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, adds that by partnering with publishers like Gannett, Perplexity hopes to enhance new business models tailored for the evolving digital landscape.

The announcement comes shortly after BBC threatened Perplexity with litigation for allegedly using its content without permission. And Perplexity is still fighting a lawsuit filed last year by Dow Jones and NYP Holdings, accusing it of “a massive amount of illegal copying of publishers’ copyrighted works and diverting customers and critical revenues away from those copyright holders.”

In February, Perplexity filed a motion to dismiss. 

Despite that unpleasantness, Perplexity has numerous other media partners. Last December, Perplexity announced it had signed The Independent, Lee Enterprises, Los Angeles Times, MediaLab, Mexico News Daily and several other entities.

Content licensing for machine learning is growing in popularity even as lawsuits are being fought. In May, The New York Times  signed a content licensing deal with Amazon that will bring it from $20 million to $25 million in fees per year, according to a report this week in The Wall Street Journal. 

Few publishers, including the Times, can afford to pass up that kind of revenue. But the Times and several other publishers still have a case going against OpenAI.