Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas was "surprised" by a lawsuit from media baron Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones and the New York Post against the search startup, he said at the WSJ Tech Live conference on Wednesday.

Media conglomerate News Corp-owned publishers sued California-based Perplexity on Monday, claiming that the startup engages in a "massive amount of illegal copying" of their copyrighted work.

Srinivas said the publishers reached out to Perplexity "around June" and the startup responded that it was open to talking to them.

Dow Jones and the New York Post sent a letter to Perplexity in July, notifying it of the legal issues raised by its unauthorised use of copyrighted works, and offering to discuss a potential licensing deal. Perplexity did not respond, according to the suit.

Since the introduction of ChatGPT, publishers have been raising the alarm on chatbots that can comb the internet to find information and create summaries for the user.

Earlier this month, the New York Times sent Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding it to stop using the newspaper's content for generative AI purposes.

Nvidia and Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity faced accusations from media organisations such as Forbes and Wired for plagiarizing their content, but has since launched a revenue-sharing program to address some concerns put forward by publishers.