Photo by rupixen on Unsplash.
Privately-owned AI player Perplexity plans to pay a group of premium publishers in a new service, Comet Plus, in which users can access a deep well of news, what the company calls an antidote to low-quality clickbait.
The “trusted” publishers and journalists haven’t been revealed, nor how much they will be paid. One report suggested a pool of $42.5 million to be shared.
News publishers have been vocal in their condemnation of AI services which trawl the internet and take without paying for content to train their machine minds.
“As the web has evolved beyond information to include knowledge, action and opportunities, excellent content from publishers and journalists matters even more,” said Perplexity, whose investors include Amazon's Jeff Bezos, in a blog post.
“Users are exhausted by low-quality clickbait, high-friction experiences and endless blue links to human slop and no answers.
“They’re not alone. Publishers who’ve been forced to adapt to that model of the web have lost trust from readers and eroded their brands to stay afloat.”
Perplexity said it would announce its initial roster of publishing partners later.
“Publishers are trapped in the now-primitive economics of clicks and pageviews, compensation models built for a world that is rapidly changing,” Perplexity said.
“The quality of knowledge has never mattered more, but the systems that reward it haven't evolved.
“Comet Plus transforms how publishers are compensated in the AI age. 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.”
Perplexity said Comet Plus is the first compensation model that allocates revenue based on three types of internet traffic: human visits, search citations and agent actions.
“Publishers should settle for nothing less,” Perplexity said.
“The revenue allocation recognises the reality that users now choose how they want to consume information: browsing manually, asking for AI-generated answers, or deploying agents for complex tasks. Publishers deserve compensation that matches this new reality.”
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