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Aravind Srinivas, the CEO and co-founder of AI search startup Perplexity, has found himself embroiled in controversy over alleged plagiarism. What began as a new venture to summarize news stories has turned into a media storm, with significant accusations from some of the industry's biggest names.

Over the summer, Forbes and Wired accused Perplexity of lifting their paywalled content. Forbes discovered that a part of their story had been used in Perplexity's new product designed to summarize news articles. In a similar instance, a Wired reporter found that Perplexity's search engine attempted to pass off content from a Wired story as its own when queried for a summary.

The situation escalated when The New York Times Co. sent a cease-and-desist letter to Srinivas last week, demanding that Perplexity stop using its content. Just days later, News Corp, which publishes The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the startup over similar concerns.

When asked about the disputes with Forbes and Wired in an earlier interview, Srinivas expressed surprise at the scrutiny Perplexity was receiving. "I'm a newbie CEO trying to learn here," said the 30-year-old. "I underestimated how important people take us, to be honest. I was still thinking we are a product that most people don't even know or care about. So all that attention was very new to me."

Srinivas did not provide comments on the recent actions from The New York Times and News Corp. As the legal battles unfold, the young CEO faces significant challenges in navigating the complexities of copyright laws in the digital age.