Reddit Sues $61.5 Billion AI Startup Anthropic for Allegedly Using the Site for Training Data

Reddit filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic on Wednesday, alleging that the $61.5 billion startup used its site as training grounds for AI models without permission.

In the 42-page complaint, which was filed in Northern California court on Wednesday, Reddit claimed that Anthropic violated Reddit’s user agreement by using the site’s data for commercial purposes. Anthropic has allegedly been training its AI models on posts made by Reddit users without their consent.

Related: ‘Faster, Smarter, and More Relevant’: Reddit Tests AI That Combs the Site For You

According to TechCrunch, the lawsuit marks the first time a big tech company has legally challenged an AI startup over the material it uses to train AI models.

“We will not tolerate profit-seeking entities like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions of dollars without any return for redditors or respect for their privacy,” Reddit’s chief legal officer Ben Lee told TechCrunch in a statement.

Meanwhile, in an emailed statement to CNBC, an Anthropic spokesperson stated, “We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously.”

In July 2024, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman called out Anthropic, Microsoft, and Perplexity for unauthorizedly scraping the site for training data, and an Anthropic spokesperson assured Reddit that it had stopped. However, since then, Reddit claims to have registered that Anthropic’s bots have crawled its site over 100,000 times, per the complaint.

^{Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman. Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images}

Other companies are using Reddit data for AI training, but only after signing formal agreements with the company. Reddit struck a $60 million licensing deal with Google in February 2024, which allowed Google to train its Gemini AI on Reddit data. Reddit inked a similar contract with OpenAI in May 2024, so the ChatGPT-maker can refine its AI models from Reddit posts.

In the lawsuit against Anthropic, Reddit wrote that OpenAI and Google “are permitted to use public Reddit content but only after agreeing to Reddit’s licensing terms,” which include provisions to protect user privacy. Anthropic has not agreed to any terms and is using the site’s data without permission, Reddit claims.

Related: The Reddit Co-Founders Faced a Transformative Rejection in College — Here’s How They Bounced Back to Start a $6.5 Billion Business

Reddit has over 100 million daily active users across hundreds of thousands of subreddit communities, per the complaint. The company said the purpose of the lawsuit is to seek damages. It’s asking for a jury trial.

Reddit went public in March 2024 and is valued at over $21 billion at the time of writing.