Perplexity has been positioning itself as more than a curiosity-driven search engine. Since late 2024, the company has been testing a model for advertising that looks very different from the banner-and-click systems marketers are used to. The basic idea is simple: keep the integrity of AI-generated answers intact, while introducing paid placements that feel native to the experience.
Ads appear in two places: as sponsored follow-up questions at the bottom of a response or as placements in the sidebar. Both are marked “Sponsored,” and the copy is still generated by Perplexity’s AI. Clicking on an ad doesn’t take a user to a landing page. Instead, it prompts the system to continue the conversation with the advertiser’s brand in view. Perplexity stresses that advertiser influence stops at the placement level; answers are not edited or supplied by brands themselves Perplexity blog.
The Commercial Logic
Subscriptions and publisher partnerships alone won’t keep the lights on. In 2024, Perplexity generated about 34 million dollars in revenue while burning through almost twice that amount to cover infrastructure costs Digiday. Ads are intended to provide a steadier stream of income and give brands a transparent way to engage with the platform’s growing audience. Early partners included Indeed, Whole Foods Market, Universal McCann, and PMG.
The ad model is sold on a cost-per-mille basis, typically ranging from 30 to 60 dollars per thousand impressions, with Perplexity initially targeting CPMs above 50 WebFX. For now, opportunities are limited to select brand and agency partners as the company builds the product.
Audience and Scale
Perplexity reports around 22 million active users, which is a fraction of ChatGPT’s estimated 400 million or Google’s AI Overviews, which claims over 1.5 billion monthly users. What makes the platform interesting for advertisers is the composition of its audience: mostly college-educated, relatively affluent, and with a significant portion in senior roles WebFX. In other words, small scale, but attractive demographics.
This positioning creates a tension. Advertisers see the promise of reaching high-value users in a less crowded environment, but they also want reach and measurable ROI. Several agency buyers told Digiday they’re holding back spend because the platform is still awareness-driven, lacks performance metrics, and offers little efficiency compared to established channels. CPMs in the 50 dollar range only sharpen that concern.
Early Impressions From Buyers
The reaction after six months of testing is mixed. Marketers are curious, but many feel Perplexity hasn’t moved fast enough. As Robert Kurtz of Basis Technologies put it, brands are waiting for lower-funnel ad options before they can justify significant investment Digiday. Ryan Bopp of Eden Collective highlighted concerns around brand safety and ROI, noting that his team hasn’t advanced any actual buys yet.
There is recognition, though, that Perplexity was the first AI answer engine to make a real push into advertising, and that it continues to test ways to integrate commerce directly into its conversational flow. Debra Aho Williamson of Sonata Insights described it as “a small fish in a big AI pond” but credited the company with popularizing the notion that AI platforms can be ad destinations Digiday.
Why This Matters
Perplexity’s model hints at what advertising in AI-native environments may look like: context-aware, conversational, and less about clicks than about engagement inside the system. For now, the opportunity is limited. The audience is relatively small, the buy-in expensive, and the product still being defined. But it offers a preview of how brands might interact with users once AI platforms grow beyond experiments and into daily habits.