With the expansion, Perplexity will reportedly pay media publishers a share of the revenue if they receive traffic via Comet.
Japanese publications Asahi and Nikkei have reportedly filed a lawsuit against Perplexity
Photo Credit: Reuters
Perplexity, the Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup, has reportedly expanded its revenue-sharing programme for publishers. As per the report, the company will now compensate media houses and website publishers when their content appears on the Comet web browser's AI searches. The expansion follows last year's announcement when the company first announced its revenue-sharing programme to pay publishers for surfacing their content on its AI answer engine platform. Perplexity is reportedly funding the payout via its new subscription tier for the Comet browser.
According to Bloomberg, Perplexity has allocated a fund of $42.5 million (roughly Rs. 372.5 crore) to be distributed among publishers who are part of the revenue-sharing programme. The company CEO, Aravind Srinivas, told the publication, “AI is helping to create a better internet, but publishers still need to get paid. So we think this is actually the right solution, and we're happy to make adjustments along the way.”
The expanded programme will reportedly allow publishers to earn money when the content on their website is scraped by bots belonging to the Comet browser. Additionally, revenue-sharing will also be triggered if the AI assistant of the browser surfaces content from these websites or if the browser's AI agent visits the websites to complete an action, the report added.
Perplexity is said to be generating funds for disbursal via the new Comet Plus subscription. The subscription tier reportedly allows access to a curated section of content from publishers that are part of the programme. The subscription reportedly costs $5 (roughly Rs. 440) a month.
While the company reportedly refused to mention the names of the publishers that are part of the programme, the company's head of publisher partnerships, Jessica Chan, told Bloomberg that Perplexity is in talks with existing publisher partners such as Time and Fortune.
Chan reportedly also called the existing web traffic-based revenue model of websites “an old model,” and added, “We just want to create a new standard for compensation.”
Notably, the revenue-sharing programme's announcement was made on the same day when two of Japan's newspaper publishers, Asahi Shimbun and Nikkei, announced filing a lawsuit against Perplexity for alleged copyright infringement. The lawsuit was reportedly filed in the Tokyo District Court, and the publishers are asking for an injunction to stop the company from reproducing their articles. Additionally, the plaintiffs have also sought JPY 2.2 billion (roughly Rs. 130.5 crore) in damages for each publishing house.
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