Perplexity Enhances Its Publisher Program
Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine, is broadening its publisher program, with the LA Times, Adweek, Mexico News Daily, and several other news outlets joining the initiative. Publishers will benefit from revenue generated by advertisements on Perplexity, along with receiving metrics to monitor their content’s performance — provided they don’t withdraw.
“We would not be able to serve factual, valuable answers without news organizations continuing to report on different topics,” Jessica Chan, head of publisher partnerships at Perplexity, said in a statement. “We’re excited to welcome these new publishers to the program.”
Spanish-language media brand Pris Media, newspaper conglomerate Lee Enterprises, and The Independent are among the dozen publishers newly participating. Additional new members include Blavity, NewsPicks, Minkabu Infonoid, Gear Patrol, MediaLab, DPReview, World History Encyclopedia, and RTL Germany brands NTV and Stern.
It’s unclear to what extent these publishers informed their staff about the partnerships prior to their public announcement. A source at LA Times disclosed to TechCrunch that reporters were not made aware of the Perplexity deal, or only learned of it through casual remarks, and that the editorial department did not have a chance to express their opinions to leadership.
A source at Adweek mentioned that some of its team members were also not informed or included in the discussions. One reporter found out about the deal through a press release.
“[Everyone’s] perplexed. That’s truly the best word for it,” the LA Times source stated. “I don’t think anyone seems to have enough information to be positive or negative about it. Some people hadn’t heard of Perplexity, so [there’s] really just a lack of information to have any position on it. But I’m sure everyone will have thoughts once we know more.”
Notably missing from the new group is The New York Times, which in October sent Perplexity a cease and desist letter demanding the startup cease accessing its articles without permission. Dow Jones, which operates the Wall Street Journal and other newswire services, along with The NY Post, have also not joined Perplexity’s program — they are suing the company over what they describe as a “content kleptocracy.”
Perplexity has a complicated relationship with publishers. Its search engine utilizes AI to synthesize and summarize content, including news, from various online sources. However, the manner in which Perplexity presents these summaries — along with the company’s data-gathering methods — remains contentious.
Perplexity employs AI to aggregate information from a multitude of sources.
This summer, Forbes accused Perplexity of plagiarizing its subscription content and subsequently threatened legal action. Simultaneously, Wired published an article indicating that Perplexity’s platform was paraphrasing its stories — at times inaccurately.
According to Copyleaks, a company developing technology to detect AI-generated text, Perplexity was summarizing select paywalled news as recently as late October.
In a blog post addressing Dow Jones’ lawsuit, Perplexity claimed that publishers wished its technology “didn’t exist” and would prefer that “publicly reported facts are owned by corporations.” However, the post did not directly tackle the allegations that Perplexity extensively reproduces content and competes with those publishers for the same audience.
Perplexity asserts that it cites its sources, which it does. Nonetheless, the citations can sometimes be erroneous.
In a move unlikely to foster positive relations with publishers, Perplexity is keeping the specifics of its program’s terms under wraps. This summer, the company informed The Verge that the agreements were “multiyear” with a “double-digit” percentage, and that payments would be made for each article Perplexity served to users. However, when TechCrunch inquired about the terms this week, a spokesperson indicated that Perplexity “wasn’t sharing financial specifics.”
It’s possible that Perplexity is cautious about publicizing the terms — publishers might leverage them in negotiations with competitors. In October, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search, a competing AI-powered search tool, alongside its own publishing partners like The Atlantic, News Corp., and Vox Media.
Unlike Perplexity’s publisher program, OpenAI’s allows publishers to manage how their content appears in search results. Perplexity had previously stated it was working on content controls, but provided no updates on progress this morning.
As Perplexity’s program grows, the startup may face increased pressure from investors to recover costs. The company is reportedly in the process of raising $500 million in a deal that would value it at $9 billion. However, its annual recurring revenue was approximately $50 million as of October, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Perplexity co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas appears optimistic. In a post on X on Wednesday, he announced that Perplexity is now handling around 20 million queries a day, a significant increase from 2.5 million queries per day at the beginning of the year.