By Cristina Criddle
Publication Date: 2026-02-18 02:20:00
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AI start-up Perplexity has abandoned advertising over fears that it will erode user trust, despite rivals pushing ahead with introducing ads as they seek strategies to make money from the technology.
San Francisco-based Perplexity was one of the first generative AI companies to introduce ads in 2024, running tests in which sponsored answers were displayed under the chatbot’s answers.
However, the company — which also offers paid subscriptions — began phasing out the ads late last year. On Tuesday, executives at the company said it had no plans to pursue advertising further.
“A user needs to believe this is the best possible answer, to keep using the product and be willing to pay for it,” a Perplexity executive said.
Perplexity’s ads were labelled and the company said they had no bearing on the chatbot’s responses.
But the executive said in general “the challenge with ads is that a user would just start doubting everything . . . which is why we don’t see it as a fruitful thing to focus on right now”.
It comes as leading AI groups have followed Perplexity in introducing advertising to start making money from free users and appease investors as they burn through cash to train and sustain the large language models that underpin popular products.
OpenAI last week began testing advertising on its core product, ChatGPT, for users…