Recently, the AI startup Perplexity AI, which has garnered significant attention, has received support from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. The company is currently in talks with several renowned brands, including Nike and Marriott International, with plans to launch a "sponsored Q&A" advertising system by the end of the year. The aim of this system is to challenge Google's dominance in the $300 billion digital advertising market.
Perplexity AI, based in San Francisco, is developing a novel advertising model that allows brands to bid on "sponsored questions" and receive AI-generated answers that have been vetted by advertisers. This means that when users search using Perplexity, they will see questions and answers related to the brand, thereby increasing brand visibility.
Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, stated that the effectiveness of advertisements lies in their relevance and the quality of the brand. He hopes that this new advertising system can become a "cash cow" and create more value for brands.
The system plans to roll out with a cost per thousand impressions exceeding $50, which is more attractive compared to Google's cost per thousand impressions of around $1100.
Reports indicate that Perplexity successfully raised funds in April, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion, making it a unicorn company. Since the beginning of the year, its revenue and usage have grown by 700%, and in the last month alone, this AI-powered search engine has answered approximately 250 million questions, a significant increase from the 5 million queries for the entire previous year.
However, Perplexity has faced some controversies. Forbes and Wired previously accused the company of plagiarism, claiming that it copied articles without proper authorization and accessed websites that had specifically blocked its crawler. Perplexity has acknowledged these allegations and stated that it has updated the user interface to more clearly highlight citations and adjusted the system to avoid summarizing content from these sites.
Key Points:
📈 Perplexity AI is in talks with Nike and Marriott to launch a new "sponsored Q&A" advertising system.
💰 The new advertising system's pricing will be significantly lower than Google's, expected to attract more brands.
🚀 Since the beginning of the year, Perplexity's usage and revenue have grown by 700%, and it has become a unicorn company with a valuation exceeding $1 billion.