Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence startup mired in controversy The company plans to start advertising on its search app in the fourth quarter amid accusations of plagiarizing media content, CNBC has learned.
The company, which specializes in artificial intelligence-assisted searches, is distributing promotional materials to expand the app’s reach and increase usage. The company said its app has been downloaded more than 2 million times and has 230 million monthly users, while the U.S. Inquiries increased eightfold last year, according to a presentation viewed by CNBC.
Puzzled raise new funds In April, the company was valued at more than $1 billion, double its valuation three months earlier. But the app’s growing popularity has highlighted concerns about the way the company displays content from other sources.
Forbes reported in June that it found A plagiarized version of its story on Perplexity made no mention of the media outlet, other than a small “F” logo at the bottom of the page. A few weeks later, “Wired” said it also found Perplexity copied evidence reported by Wired, which reported that an IP address “almost certainly associated with Perplexity but not listed in its public IP range” was visited its parent company’s website more than 800 times in three months.
The company told CNBC that it made changes to how its Perplexity page cites sources in the wake of the accusations and updated it so that its responses would better cite the media directly in the generated copy.
Last month, Perplexity launched a revenue-sharing model that offers publishers the chance to make money from the company’s search engine. Whenever a user asks a question and Perplexity generates advertising revenue by citing an article in their answer, Perplexity shares a percentage of that revenue with the publisher.
Media organizations and content platforms including Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel and WordPress are among the first to join the company’s Publisher Program Media and content platform. Perplexity chief commercial officer Dmitry Shevelenko told CNBC in a July interview that if three articles from a publisher are used in an answer, partners will receive “three times the revenue share.” He said the company has been working on the feature since January and aims to have 30 publishers on board by the end of the year.
When it comes to advertising, Perplexity will follow a model called CPM, or cost-per-thousand impressions, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the details are private. Sources say the CPM price will exceed $50. Search Marketing Company semlash As I wrote in a blog post last year, desktop display ads typically cost around $2.50 per thousand impressions, while mobile video rates are around $11.10.
Perplexity said in its promotional materials that its main advertising categories will initially include topics such as technology, health and pharmaceuticals, arts and entertainment, finance and food and drink. Advertisers will be able to sponsor “related questions” below the answers and purchase display ads on the right or for answers generated by Perplexity.
According to the presentation, more than eight in 10 Perplexity users have undergraduate degrees, three in 10 are in “senior leadership positions,” and 65 percent are in “high-paying white-collar professions” such as medicine, law, and software engineering.
Artificial intelligence-assisted search has been viewed by investors as a Google’s A major risk because it could change the way consumers get information online. OpenAI kicked off the generative AI craze through ChatGPT at the end of 2022, and launched a search engine called SearchGPT last month. In May, Google launched “AI Overviews” in search, allowing users to see a quick summary of answers at the top of results.
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