Perplexity AI Reportedly Planning to Show Ads on Its Platform Before the End of the Year

Perplexity AI, the artificial intelligence (AI) platform that can scour the Internet to find curated answers for user queries, is planning to run ads on its platform, as per a new report. The company, which built the AI-powered answer engine, has reportedly prepared a pitch deck for advertisers to showcase the popularity and engagement of its platform. The AI firm is said to be planning to run ads by the end of the year, although details are not known. Notably, the company released a new feature dubbed Pro Search last month, which can offer results for more complex queries.

Perplexity AI to Reportedly Show Ads

According to a report by CNBC, the company is now planning to bring advertisers to its search engine platform. The publication claimed to have seen the pitch deck for advertisers and said that the company could begin running ads as soon as the fourth quarter of 2024.

Perplexity's pitch deck reportedly contains numbers and data about the platform's users and engagement. The company is said to have claimed that its apps, which are available on both Android and iOS, were downloaded more than two million times. The deck also mentions that the platform answers more than 230 million queries a month, as per the report.

Currently, the AI platform has a freemium subscription model for revenue. It has a standard free tier which offers unlimited quick searches and five Pro Searches a day, and a Pro tier which offers more than 300 Pro Searches and additional features. The Pro tier is priced at $20 (roughly Rs. 1,670) per month. It is unclear whether these reported ads will be shown on the free tier or the Pro tier as well.

If the report is to be believed, it appears the company is now planning to diversify its revenue streams. One reason for this could be the recent decision to start a revenue-sharing model for publishers. In June, multiple media publications, including Forbes and Wired, accused Perplexity of plagiarising their content.

With the revenue-sharing plan, whenever a publisher's content is referenced in the brand-sponsored related questions and Perplexity earns revenue from the interaction, a flat percentage will be shared with the said publisher. The revenue-sharing model will work on a per-article basis.

While the reported pitch deck could be for the ads mentioned in the revenue-sharing plan, the report did not clarify if these ads would be separate from this.