AI search startup Perplexity is distancing itself from advertising amid fears that consumers won’t trust chatbots with an upselling agenda. The move highlights an emerging crossroads for the AI industry as the sector’s biggest players look for stable revenue streams to bankroll massive spending, with the likes of OpenAI leaning toward big ads and others like Anthropic promising to keep them out.
“The challenge with advertising is that a consumer will just start to question everything … that’s why we don’t see it as a productive thing to focus on right now,” said one unnamed executive. FT. Instead, the company will focus on creating something that consumers are “willing to pay for,” especially business consumers and high-powered consumers such as finance professionals, lawyers, doctors, and CEOs.
Another executive didn’t rule out a return to advertising in the future, but said serving ads was “misaligned with what consumers want” and the company may not need it to grow. “We’re in the accuracy business, and the business is giving the truth, the right answers,” he said.
The pivot places Wonder firmly on the anti-advertising side of the industry’s emerging divide about how AI should make money. Some, like Perplexity, are hoping subscriptions will be enough and Anthropic has committed to keeping its chatbot Claude ad-free. Others, like OpenAI, have embraced ads, and last week, the company began testing ads for free ChatGPT users. The controversy has also spilled over into the public arena, with Anthropic airing attack ads apparently targeting ChatGPT at the Super Bowl, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called “dishonest.”
