Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine announced the launch of its new Publisher Program. DigiDay reported. This, experts opine is as much about making business sense as it is about mending ways with the publishers given the several legal issues the company has been facing over charges of copyright infringement. Publishers such as Condé Nast and Forbes have issued cease and desist letters for the same as well.
The Chief Business Officer at Perplexity, Dmitry Shevelenko said he is optimistic the new program will help improve their relationship with the publishers. He also said their use of articles is perfectly in accordance with the fair use doctrine of copyright law and is hoping a positive response from the publishers with respect to the Publisher Program.
The entire Publisher Program thing is based on the business model that envisions Perplexity generating most of its revenue from advertisements. The company said it is in the process of turning its platform that way and is hoping to be ready by the end of the year. In that vein, the Publisher Program can be seen as a revenue-sharing agreement between Perplexity and publishers. The company said they plan to have in place a search engine model that is going to be different in that it will provide partners with a revenue share model, something that has never been attempted before.
“Publishers that create content that is rich in facts, that’s useful to answering people’s questions … they’ll be on that journey with us. If we’re not successful, it doesn’t matter. But if we are successful, we want [publishers] to join in that success with us, explained Shevelenko.
Perplexity however isn’t sharing the exact terms of the agreement it has reached with the publishers. The company however said it expects publishers to earn a double digit percentage of the advertising revenue for each article that gets featured in the search results. So, if a search query leads to a response that features two articles from the same publisher, the latter will earn twice the commission.
The revenue sharing rate is also expected to change depending on the performance of the new business model. Shevelenko however said if the rate increases, this is going to be applicable uniformly to all, including the initial lot of publishers who signed up for the program. That includes Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, and Automattic. That said, the publishers who join later might have to settle for a lower rate. It is going to be a multi-year deal though the actual duration is going to vary from publisher to publisher.
“This isn’t meant to be some exclusive list. Anybody that produces high-quality content that is rich in facts, whether it be a small publisher, big publisher, independent blogger, if we’re monetizing that for advertising, we want to share that upside,” said Shevelenko.
Perplexity further stated their business model is different from the likes of OpenAI or Google which involve a flat fee structure for using content to train large language models. Instead of licensing, Perplexity said their system retrieves factual content to answer user queries. This, Shevelenko said is legal as per fair use principles. This way, such a model is designed to be more of an ancillary revenue source for the publishers rather than being a primary source of income.
“This is truly ancillary revenue [for publishers]. We’re not really competing with publishers … The publisher program is not a legal strategy,“ said Shevelenko. “People don’t come to Perplexity to read news articles, but they come to ask questions … and journalistic content is incredibly rich in terms of the facts that are embedded in it. And if there is not a healthy ecosystem for open publishing of that content that is fact-rich, the core Perplexity product experience starts to degrade.”
However, not all publishers seem impressed though. Forbes, for one, has refused Perplexity’s offer claiming it fails to do justice to the Forbes brand as well as their style of journalism. Similarly, Fortune expressed a commitment to ensuring fair compensation for their work while engaging with emerging AI technologies.
Meanwhile, publishers who have joined the program have the added benefit of selling ad inventory on Perplexity, something that can add to their revenue share as well. The publishers will also have access to Perplexity’s APIs which will let them create custom answer engines. That is not all as they will also have a free one-year license to the company’s Enterprise Pro tool for fact-checking and research.
“The ball is in our court to show that this is real, to show that ad revenues are material. And I’m sure over time, most publishers will happily say yes to free ancillary income,” said Shevelenko.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I’ll likely make a film sometime in the future.
