Perplexity is reversing its course on ads in its AI chatbot, phasing them out entirely once more.
Perplexity is set to stop displaying advertisements in its AI chatbot. The US-based startup was one of the first AI companies to inject advertising into its solution. In 2024, Perplexity displayed ads beneath its chatbot’s answers, but that is now coming to an end.
The company had initially chosen a strategy that sounds very similar to the advertising system that OpenAI is now introducing. Users saw clearly marked advertisements below the chatbot’s responses, which themselves remained unaffected. The sponsored information had no impact on the objective functioning of the bot itself.
Undermining trust
However, Perplexity noticed that the advertising was eroding trust in the chatbot. “A user must believe they are getting the best possible answer to continue using the product and paying for it,” the company reasons. By placing ads next to answers, users began to doubt the reliability of the entire solution.
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Perplexity offers both free and paid subscriptions. Since last year, the company has been phasing out advertising across all products again. According to the Financial Times, the company decided this week to no longer pursue advertising revenue. Advertising is no longer in line with what the startup wants to offer its users.
Business decision
The company is not stating that advertising will never return, but it notes that ads are not appropriate at this time, and perhaps never will be. This aligns somewhat with Anthropic’s vision. The company behind Claude has also stated that it believes advertisements have no place in its AI solutions.
Perplexity’s vision shows how the decision of whether or not to show ads isn’t purely ethical. The company has no fundamental problem with advertising, but it has noticed that sponsored information detracts from the value of its product and customers’ willingness to pay for it. Business logic, therefore, points toward an ad-free product.
This is good news, as AI and ethics are under pressure in the US. A lack of regulation allows pure profit to be the primary driver for innovation, but that is not the biggest problem. The US government is now pressuring companies themselves to make their AI available to the military without any conditions.