Perplexity is launching a $5/month subscription service called Comet Plus, and it comes with a payout model for publishers. When a user asks a question (and Perplexity pulls from licensed news content), the publisher gets paid. The company is setting aside $42.5 million for the first phase and says 80% of Comet Plus revenue will go to participating publishers, including revenue from higher-tier plans that bundle the feature for free.
This replaces the old ad-revenue sharing model and builds on Perplexity’s existing deals with outlets like Gannett. It’s also a direct response to legal pressure. News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, sued Perplexity last year for copyright infringement. Others are still in court with OpenAI and other AI firms over similar issues.
The strategy here is simple: avoid lawsuits, license the content, and turn generative answers into a paid product. Perplexity isn’t alone. OpenAI has a deal with News Corp. Amazon recently cut one with The New York Times. Google is testing its own publisher tools in NotebookLM and Search.
Will $42.5 million make a dent? No, but this is a time-tested model. If it scales, others will copy it. If it doesn’t, the courts will decide how these systems source and cite content.
Search and web browsing behaviors have measurably shifted. People are asking questions and expecting synthesized, citation-rich answers. The trend is clear. The business must optimize for answer engines. Will the new paradigm remunerate original content creators? Let’s see how this goes.
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.