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2h ago

Perplexity Launches Comet Plus, Pledging $42.5 Million in Publisher Payouts

The subscription-funded payouts tie compensation to how often publisher content powers Comet interactions.

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Perplexity, led by CEO Aravind Srinivas, is building Comet—an AI search engine to compete with Google.
Perplexity AI, headed by co-founder Aravind Srinivas, challenges Google in the online search market, but the internet giant is busy packing its own offerings with AI features
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Overview

  • Publishers receive 80% of revenue from the new $5 Comet Plus tier, with Perplexity retaining 20% for compute and operations.
  • Earnings are calculated from three signals: direct visits via the Comet browser, citations in search responses, and tasks completed by the Comet assistant using a site’s content.
  • Perplexity has earmarked an initial $42.5 million pool for payouts, and the company says payments have already begun, according to Digiday’s interview with its partnerships lead.
  • Revenue for the pool is drawn from Comet Plus as well as existing Pro and Max subscriptions, with subscribers getting access to curated publisher content.
  • The launch follows intensifying legal pressure, including a recent loss on a motion to dismiss a News Corp suit, and disputed scraping accusations from Cloudflare that Perplexity denies.