The AI-Powered Search Platform Is Reaching Out to Potential Advertisers
Perplexity is set to introduce ads on its app in the fourth quarter of this year. The AI-powered search platform has been connecting with potential advertisers through a pitch deck, which promotes the app’s recent growth and increased outreach. According to the presentation, the app has been downloaded over 2 million times and has 230 million monthly users. U.S. queries have reportedly surged eightfold in the past year.
In April, Perplexity raised new funding that doubled its valuation to over $1 billion in just three months. However, with the app’s rising popularity, concerns have surfaced over how it sources and presents content. In June, Forbes reported finding a plagiarized version of one of its articles on Perplexity’s platform, with only a small “F” logo indicating the source. Wired followed with its own accusations, stating that Perplexity had plagiarized its stories and revealing that an IP address “almost certainly linked to Perplexity” had visited its parent company’s websites over 800 times within three months.
In response to these allegations, Perplexity has worked to update its Pages feature with improved source citations, ensuring that its responses better credit original outlets directly within the generated content.
Last month, Perplexity introduced a revenue-sharing model for publishers, offering them a share of the ad revenue generated when their content is used in search answers. This move aims to create financial opportunities for publishers participating in Perplexity’s search engine. Notable media outlets, including Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel, and WordPress, were among the first to join the “Publishers Program.”
Perplexity’s upcoming ad model will follow the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) approach, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the information not being public. The source added that CPM rates will exceed $50, significantly higher than typical display ad CPMs. For example, Semrush reported that desktop display ads generally have a CPM of around $2.50, with mobile video ads averaging about $11.10.
The company’s pitch deck indicates that initial advertising categories will include technology, health, pharmaceuticals, arts and entertainment, finance, and food and beverage. Advertisers will have the option to sponsor “related questions” beneath answers and place display ads next to Perplexity-generated responses.
According to the deck, over 80% of Perplexity users hold an undergraduate degree, and 30% are in senior leadership roles. Additionally, 65% of users work in high-income, white-collar professions such as medicine, law, and software engineering.
AI-assisted search has caught the attention of investors as a potential threat to Google’s dominance, as it may alter how consumers seek information online. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, recently launched its own search engine called SearchGPT. Meanwhile, Google introduced “AI Overviews” in May, allowing users to view a summary of search results at the top of the page.
