Perplexity.ai is planning to introduce advertising into its interface. In a post titled Why We’re Experimenting with Advertising, Perplexity outlined its approach: integrating sponsored questions crafted in collaboration with advertisers. While the questions will be labeled as sponsored, Perplexity says the answers will not be influenced by the advertiser. Instead, they will surface the paid advertisement next to the answer. The company’s blog post did not show an example of the entire experience.
When Perplexity launched, I fell in love. It was a way to do 10 minutes of Google searches in 10 seconds. Then, over time, the service became less useful because the quality of the results varied so much, forcing me to check every answer (which defeated the purpose). I still use Perplexity for some searches, but I’ve installed the GPT Search Chrome extension and made ChatGPT Search my go-to AI-assisted search engine. Right now, I have Google and Perplexity bookmarked and I use them when needed.
Perplexity says it needs ad dollars to make ends meet. I’m sure that’s true, but is this the right way to integrate advertising into AI-generated search results?
If you ask the wrong question, you’re guaranteed to get the wrong answer.
Google is not a search engine. It is a highly specialized direct response advertising engine purpose-built to translate the value of “intention” into wealth for Google (Alphabet) shareholders. It is optimized to put the right ad in front of the right person at the right time. In other words, it is designed to optimize revenue; all other considerations are secondary.
All of the new generative AI-based search products – OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search, Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity.ai, etc. – are actually search tools. They are not optimized for advertising; they are optimized to give you the information you are intending to find. Would anyone ever trust a sponsored paragraph of information returned from a search query? Isn’t that the definition of an advertorial? You don’t need to be a skeptic or a conspiracy theorist to instantly mistrust sponsored information; we’ve all been trained to know an ad when we see one.
Where does that leave Perplexity and the rest of the AI ad newbies who hope to eat Google’s lunch? Consumer behavior is hard to change. Old habits die hard. Choose your cliché. We’re entering an interesting era of trial and error. I’m happy to do the trial; the sociology says there’s going to be some errors.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.