The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement, touching off a legal fight over generative-AI technologies with far-reaching implications for the future of the news publishing business.

In a complaint filed Wednesday, the Times said the technology companies exploited its content without permission to create their AI products, including OpenAI’s humanlike chatbot ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. The tools were trained on millions of pieces of Times content, the suit said, and draw on that material to serve up answers to users’ prompts.