By Benjamin Gächter
Publication Date: 2026-02-18 08:49:00
The AI startup Perplexity has stopped running ads on its platform. The company fears that advertisements could undermine user trust, according to the Financial Times. Perplexity was one of the first GenAI companies in 2024 to experiment with sponsored answers beneath chatbot results. However, at the end of last year, the San Francisco-based company began gradually removing the ads.
The decision stands in contrast to competitor OpenAI, which has recently integrated sponsored links in ChatGPT to generate advertising revenue. ChatGPT charges 60 US dollars per 1,000 ad impressions (CPM). That’s three times what Meta currently charges.
“A user needs to believe this is the best possible answer in order to continue using the product and be willing to pay for it,” a Perplexity manager told FT. Although the ads were labeled and, according to the company, had no influence on the chatbot’s answers, management sees a fundamental problem: “The challenge with advertising is that a user would simply start to doubt everything.” For this reason, Perplexity no longer views advertising as a “fruitful thing” – while ChatGPT is just getting started.
OpenAI bets on ads, Anthropic refuses
While Perplexity retreats, OpenAI is introducing ads in ChatGPT for users without a paid subscription – labeled ads appear beneath the answers there. The company emphasizes that ChatGPT’s answers are not influenced by sponsors. Tech giant Google does have ads in AI Mode and in its AI…
