Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other newspapers, on Dec. 6 announced a partnership with Perplexity, an AI search engine.
Perplexity, founded in 2022, claims it answers 100 million questions every week, but I’d never heard of it.
(My bad: Perplexity this year has been accused by Forbes of ripping off its content, it’s been hit with a cease-and-desist from the New York Times for violating its copyright, it’s been sued by Dow Jones and the New York Post for copyright infringement.)
To get acquainted with Perplexity, I asked it a few questions. A handful of answers seemed robust. Most were missing key details. But the most entertaining answers came when I asked Perplexity about Lee Enterprises and about the partnership.
Here’s an example:
Lee, as expected, is sanguine about the partnership, which it promises will “redefine how communities interact with local news and advertising, offering personalized content experiences and opening new avenues for local businesses to connect with their audiences.”
After the Perplexity announcement, Lee said it also inked similar deals with Prorata.ai and AWS.
On Aug. 6, 2025, Perplexity said it would provide AI search functions for Donald Trump’s Truth Social as part of a new partnership. Axios reported: “Truth Social users who run Perplexity searches may find their results limited to a narrow set of typically Trump-supporting media outlets.”
Roland Klose 