Forbes has accused AI search startup Perplexity of plagiarizing its exclusive reporting through a feature called ‘Perplexity Pages.’ In an investigation published Tuesday, Forbes found that a page created by the Perplexity team reproduced several sentences and details from its exclusive story about Eric Schmidt’s stealth drone project without prominently naming Forbes as the source—instead burying the attribution in tiny footnotes. The pages had already attracted tens of thousands of views.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas responded on X that the product has ‘rough edges’ and pledged to improve the layout. After Forbes flagged the issue, Perplexity updated the pages to more prominently credit source publications at the top. Forbes Chief Content Officer Randall Lane said that Perplexity’s treatment of premium journalism is ‘the perfect case study for this critical moment’ in AI. ‘I’m an AI bull, and in the right hands, productivity and advances and prosperity await,’ Lane wrote. ‘But in the hands of the likes of Srinivas — who has the reputation as being great at the PhD tech stuff and less-than-great at the basic human stuff — amorality poses existential risk.’

The incident has reignited a familiar debate over whether AI answer engines are building their products on the backs of publishers without fair compensation.