Report says AI search engine Perplexity will soon show ads to users

Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search engine Perplexity AI is reportedly planning to display ads on its platform. As per the report, advertisers will be given space in the relevant questions section of user flows, where ads will be merged based on the relevance of user queries. The company is said to be showing ads before the next financial quarter, and users may start seeing ads in July. Notably, Perplexity recently partnered with Nothing to offer a free Perplexity Pro subscription with every Phone 2a purchase.

Dmitry Shevelenko, Chief Commercial Officer, Perplexity, spoke and Adweek revealed the company’s plans to sell advertising. According to the report, the program will integrate ads in a way that is not obstructive or intrusive to users. To this end, Perplexity will display ads in the relevant question sections that arise when users make their main queries on the platform.

Once a user asks a question, the AI ​​chatbot searches the internet for relevant information and presents it in a conversational manner, while annotating the source of the data. Just below it, there is a “Related” section that displays questions that delve deeper into the topic or are related to the original query. Currently, the company claims these related questions are organic and curated using artificial intelligence’s recommendation algorithms. However, once companies start selling ads, these will be a combination of organic and brand-sponsored issues.

However, the company is not planning to show random ads and will only place them in places that are also relevant to users, the report said. Google’s search rivals told Adweek that the decision to include ads in the related questions section was driven by the fact that this section accounts for 40% of the total query volume on the AI-powered search platform.In January, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a report postal The platform has 10 million monthly active users (MAU).

The strong numbers also led the platform to raise $73.6 million (approximately Rs. 613 crore) in a Series B funding round led by IVP. Nvidia and Jeff Bezos also joined as investors during the funding process. Now the company must convince advertisers that the ad space it sells them will provide good visibility for their products.