Perplexity will pay publishers a share of revenue from AI queries: how the new program will work

American startup Perplexity AI Inc., which is developing an AI-powered search engine and aims to compete with Google, has announced the launch of a media revenue sharing program, Bloomberg reports. The company has allocated $42.5 million to pay publishers whose content is used in its search and tools.

Under the terms of the program, publishers will be able to receive funds when their content appears in Comet browser search results, is used in user queries, or helps perform tasks through the AI assistant.

Funding will come from a Comet Plus subscription ($5 per month), which will provide access to a selection of content from partner media outlets. Publishers will receive 80% of the revenue, with the remainder going to Perplexity.

The company declined to name the program’s participants but confirmed negotiations with preliminary partners, including Time, the Los Angeles Times, and Fortune.

Perplexity has previously faced criticism and lawsuits from the media. Forbes and Condé Nast accused the company of using their content without permission, while Dow Jones and the New York Post filed lawsuits for copyright infringement. Cloudflare also claimed that Perplexity bypassed protective blocks to collect data from websites.

Srinivas insists that the company’s AI assistant is not a web scraper: “When a user asks an agent to read something on their behalf, it’s different from how a web crawler works.”

In July, Perplexity raised $100 million in investments at a valuation of $18 billion. The company also recently announced its intention to acquire Google Chrome for $34.5 billion if Google is forced to sell it due to antitrust proceedings in the United States.

Read more: Perplexity might raise $500M in a new funding round. This will increase its valuation to $14B