Perplexity begins testing ads as sponsored follow-up questions

Sponsored follow-up questions will start appearing on AI answer engine Perplexity this week, the company announced. Rumored since April, we previously reported the Perplexity ads would launch in Q4 and here they are.

How it works. The ads will appear as follow-up questions and appear on the side of the answer.

• The question will be labeled as “sponsored.”
• The answers to the sponsored questions will be generated by Perplexity, not the brand sponsoring the question.

What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot Perplexity shared of a sponsored follow-up question:

Why we care. There are 100 million search queries conducted per week on Perplexity. While that isn’t a staggering number, it gives brands and businesses a new opportunity to reach consumers. However, it remains to be seen how Perplexity users – many of whom ditched Google at least in part because of advertising – will respond.

By the numbers. A Perplexity pitch deck highlighted that:

• 80% of its users have an undergraduate degree.
• 30% hold a “senior leadership position.”
• 65% are in “high-income white-collar professions,” (e.g., medicine, law and software engineering).

First ad partners. Indeed, Whole Foods Market, Universal McCann and PMG are among the first brands and agencies testing Perplexity’s new ad offering, the company said.

Why ads. Perplexity said it is testing ads because:

• “Ad programs like this help us generate revenue to share with our publisher partners. Experience has taught us that subscriptions alone do not generate enough revenue to create a sustainable revenue-sharing program.”

Perplexity’s revenue sharing program launched in July.

Perplexity’s blog post. Why we’re experimenting with advertising