• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 2, 2024

Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search engine, plans to add advertising to its "ask engine." It's just not quite ready, yet.

"We are exploring potential advertising options inside of Perplexity, but we would only incorporate them in a way that still preserves the promise of unbiased answers," Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko wrote in an email to Media Daily News. "Our principles ensure we remain focused on delivering a best-in-class user experience as we introduce advertising solutions."

Two of those principles include: do not show the ads before the answers, and do not let advertisers pay to bias an answer.

Shevelenko asserts that the company will adhere to both of these criteria in developing its ad products, and are exploring using Perplexity's “Related Questions” feature as an entry point for brands to influence the follow-up questions people ask on Perplexity.

For now, it is speculative, he writes, as "we have no firm products built yet or timeline on releasing them."

Reportedly, Perplexity will begin to offer both organic and brand-sponsored questions, but Shevelenko says the model has not been determined.

In the past year, the company had won the backing of new investors such as companies such as Databricks and Nvidia, as well as Jeff Bezos, Susan Wojcicki and many others. All bet that AI will change the way people find information online.

Perplexity has raised $100 million in funding so far, and more than $70 million of that was announced in January.

At the time, Perplexity cofounder and CEO Aravind Srinivas told Search & Performance Insider that the "era of sifting through SEO spam, sponsored links, and multiple sources will be replaced by a more efficient model of knowledge acquisition and sharing. You'll simply ask AI and get an answer." 

The company's tagline -- This is where knowledge begins-- appears as though advertising will become part of that learning experience.

Today, new searches create "conversational threads” on a specific topic. When a user types a query into the box, Perplexity responds with information and follow up questions. It provides direct links in favor of text-based or visual answers that does not "require someone to click away to somewhere else to get information," according to Wired -- which brings the structure of a perfect advertising model. 

Restaurant recommendations are based on an integration with Yelp that Perplexity announced two weeks ago. It supports maps, reviews, and other details in response to requests for information on cuisine and where the eat.

Companies like Google, Microsoft and Meta struggle with the perfect integration of advertising into AI models. It appears that these companies have kept traditional search advertising apart from generative AI chatbots, and perhaps for good reasons. None have found the perfect model for AI to support ads. 

Shevelenko hopes to change that perception with a new model for Perplexity.