Perplexity is rolling out a revenue-share approach via its Comet Plus subscription that pays publishers based on human visits and bot crawls on its AI browser Comet. The model reflects a wider industry shift toward usage-based AI licensing and aligns with IAB Tech Lab efforts to standardize measurement. Several publishing executives show cautious optimism but report limited engagement with Perplexity and difficulties obtaining details. Perplexity's publisher partnership team is small and has been unresponsive to outreach. Payout amounts from existing ad revenue-share programs remain unclear, and publishers have threatened legal action over scraping and data use.
Unlike the lump-sum AI training and content licensing deals favored by Amazon, Meta and OpenAI, it's building revenue share models that incentivize it to continue compensating publishers. But there are some major hurdles. In theory, the revenue share model around Perplexity's Comet Plus subscription tier announced this week sounds pretty good: publishers are paid based on how often their content is visited by humans and crawled by bots on its AI-powered browser Comet.
The IAB Tech Lab is developing a mechanism for this. Some publishing execs are optimistic - at least initially. But so far Perplexity isn't taking full advantage of this opportunity. Two publishing execs that spoke to Digiday said they have yet to meet with Perplexity reps to hear more details about Comet Plus. Perplexity has been unresponsive to messages about its revenue share programs, publishing execs told Digiday.
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