Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Anthropic on Wednesday, alleging that it is illegally “scraping” the comments of millions of Reddit users to train its chatbot Claude.

Reddit’s legal action also reflects its evolving business model. As the company prepares for life as a publicly traded entity following its IPO, data licensing has emerged as a key revenue stream. The lawsuit signals Reddit's intent to protect its assets aggressively and assert control over how its content is used.

Reddit claims that artificial intelligence company Anthropic has used automated bots to access Reddit's content despite being asked not to do so.