Perplexity is allocating a $42.5 million pool to publishers through Comet Plus, a subscription tier within its AI-powered browser Comet. Subscription revenue across Pro, Max and Comet Plus will be pooled with Perplexity retaining 20% and 80% distributed to participating publishers. Payouts will be based on direct visits from Comet users, when publisher content is cited as answers to Comet searches, and when content is used by Comet's AI assistant to complete tasks. Participating publishers include Blavity, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Gannett, The Independent and Time. Perplexity declined to disclose Comet user counts or which publishers have enrolled in Comet Plus.
Here's how it works: Revenue from Perplexity's subscriptions (Pro, Max and the new $5 tier Comet Plus, first reported by Bloomberg) gets pooled. Perplexity keeps 20% of it, and the other 80% will go to participants in Perplexity's publisher program. Revenue is divvied up based on three categories: direct visits to publisher's sites by people browsing using Comet, when publisher content is cited as an answer search queries on Comet.
Chan said publishers could stand to make "millions" from this program. She declined to share which publishers part of Perplexity's existing program have signed up to make money from Comet Plus. Digiday spoke with her to find out more details about how the revenue model works and what it means for the future of AI companies paying publishers for their content. "Perplexity only succeeds if journalism succeeds. We're really committed to building and funding more sustainable, thriving news ecosystems for the AI age," Chan said.
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