Artificial-intelligence startup Perplexity unveiled a subscription tier, Comet Plus, that charges users $5 a month for curated content and premium features in its Comet browser. Chief Executive Officer Aravind Srinivas said the company has set aside an initial $42.5 million to pay publishers whose articles are used by the service’s AI assistant. Participating publishers will receive 80 percent of subscription revenue, with Perplexity retaining the remainder to cover computing costs. Payments will be triggered when content surfaces in search results, is cited by Comet’s AI assistant or is accessed through the browser, and the pool is expected to grow as subscriber numbers rise. The move comes as Perplexity faces escalating legal pressure from media companies that allege the startup has used copyrighted material without permission. A U.S. federal court last week allowed News Corp’s copyright lawsuit against the company to proceed, and outlets including Forbes and Condé Nast have issued cease-and-desist letters. Large language-model operators such as OpenAI and Google have struck multimillion-dollar licensing agreements with publishers, but Perplexity is betting that a direct revenue-sharing model will prove more attractive. The San Francisco-based firm, which recently raised $100 million, is positioning its AI search engine and browser as alternatives to Google’s traditional search business.