Artificial Intelligence under Investigation

In the world of technology and business, several significant developments are unfolding.

Firstly, former President Donald Trump has issued a warning to US tech giants such as Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple, hinting at potential tariffs on countries imposing digital services taxes, including the UK, France, Italy, and Spain.

Meanwhile, in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), Perplexity, a company known for its AI answers, is embroiled in a series of legal challenges. Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun, two major Japanese media groups, have filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, alleging the company copied and stored articles without permission. This isn't the only legal hurdle Perplexity faces; several publishers have also sued the company for copyright infringements, including claims of circumventing technical security measures and storing articles without permission.

In an attempt to rectify the situation, Perplexity has announced a USD$42.5m (£31.6m) revenue pool to pay publishers for articles used in AI answers. The revenue pool will be funded by Perplexity's new premium service, Comet Plus. Publishers will receive 80% of the subscription revenue from Comet Plus. The details of a recent settlement between Perplexity and US authors, who claimed the company's Claude models were trained on pirated books, are yet to be disclosed.

Away from the legal troubles, Perplexity's competitor, Anthropic, has also faced a class action lawsuit from US authors. However, no information has been provided about any legal consequences for Anthropic related to the lawsuit.

Moving on to the retail sector, Walmart has reported a 46% year-over-year surge in ad revenue. This surge is attributed to Walmart's acquisition of Vizio and a 31% increase in Walmart Connect's US performance. Despite this impressive growth, Walmart's total revenue of USD$177.4bn (£132bn) for the year missed expectations, causing shares to fall.

Time, The Independent, and Der Spiegel are current partners in Perplexity's revenue pool for AI answers, adding to the company's growing list of collaborations. As the tech and retail industries continue to evolve, it remains to be seen how these developments will shape the future of these giants.