Perplexity introduced advertising into its AI system for the first time, but has now abandoned it out of concern for losing user trust.

Perplexity stops using advertising in its AI services

San Francisco startup Perplexity, one of the first players in the generative artificial intelligence market that launched an internal advertising campaign in 2024, announced a complete abandonment of advertising as a revenue source. The information came through *Financial Times*.

What happened
- Gradual removal of ads

At the end of last year, Perplexity began gradually reducing the volume of ad impressions. By Tuesday, management confirmed that further use of advertising is not planned.

- Shift to paid subscription

The company continues to offer premium accounts that provide access to advanced AI‑service features.

Why it matters
> “The user must trust that the answer is truly better. Only then will they be willing to pay for the product,” one of Perplexity’s leaders noted.

- Transparency

Ad blocks were always labeled as “advertising” and the company stated that they do not influence chatbot responses.

- Potential trust risk

Nevertheless, a top manager emphasized: “The problem with advertising is that it makes users doubt everything. That’s why we now consider it unsuitable for further development.”

Industry context
- Advertising as a new monetization model

Many large AI platforms are trying to monetize free users by introducing ads under pressure from investors who fund the training and support of large language models.

- Competitor examples

- *OpenAI* launched ad testing in ChatGPT for free U.S. users, claiming it does not affect responses.
- *Google* uses advertising in AI mode and traditional search but has not yet introduced it into the Gemini chatbot.
- *Anthropic* announced that its Claude bot will remain ad‑free.

Thus, Perplexity is betting on user trust and a premium model, rejecting the advertising approach that is becoming increasingly popular among competitors.