Perplexity Launches Subscription Tier for ‘Premium Content’

Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has announced a new subscription program called Comet Plus that it said gives users access to premium content from trusted publishers and journalists, while providing publishers with a better compensation model.

“Comet Plus transforms how publishers are compensated in the AI age,” the company said in a Monday (Aug. 25) blog post. “As users demand a better internet in the age of AI, it’s time for a business model to ensure that publishers and journalists benefit from their contributions to a better internet.”

Comet Plus is included in Perplexity’s Pro and Max memberships and is available as a standalone subscription for $5 per month.

Perplexity introduced its Comet AI-powered browser in July, saying the tool lets users answer questions and carry out tasks and research from a single interface.

Bloomberg reported Monday that Perplexity has allocated $42.5 million for a revenue sharing program that compensates publishers when their content is used by its Comet browser or AI assistant.

The program will use funds that come from Comet Plus and will deliver 80% of the revenue to publishers, with Perplexity getting the other 20%, the report said, citing an interview with Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.

“AI is helping to create a better internet, but publishers still need to get paid,” Srinivas said in the report. “Sowe think this is actually the right solution, and we’re happy to make adjustments along the way.”

Media outlets have launched a series of legal actions against AI companies, accusing them of copyright infringement. At the same time, some AI companies and new publishers have formed partnerships that cover not only training data but also the search business.

Perplexity was sued in October by two News Corp.-owned publishers — The Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones and the New York Post — that alleged that Perplexity did not respond to a letter in which they outlined their concerns about the company’s use of their copyrighted material.

Srinivas said at the time that Perplexity wanted to form revenue-sharing partnerships with news publishers and that the company could supply publishers with chatbots that would respond to users’ queries on the publishers’ websites, using their content to provide answers.

“I don’t think just licensing content is the only solution,” Srinivas said in October. “Neither am I saying our publisher program is already there. I hope that more conversations will get us there.”

It was reported in June that the BBC threatened legal action against Perplexity, alleging that the AI startup’s “default AI model” was trained using BBC material and demanding that it cease all scraping of its content, delete any copies used for AI development and propose financial compensation for the alleged copyright infringement.

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